I 

i 


I 


I 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON 


[See  page  157] 

I  came  in  by  the  staircase  door !  "   he  said  in  an  excited  voice. 


ARCHIBALD  MALMAISOU 


BY 

JULIAN   HAWTHORNE 

AUTHOR   OF   "r.ARTH,"    "SEBASTIAN   STROME,"   "DUST, 
"A   FOOL  OF    FORTUNE,"  ETC. 


Illustrations  b? 
FREELAND   A.  CARTER 


FUNK   &    WAGNALLS    COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 
I899 


Copyright,  18X4,  1X99, 

By 
FUNK   &   WAGNALLS 

AND 

FUNK   &   WAGNALLS   COMPANY 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS. 


WASH  DRAWINGS. 

"'I  came  in  by  the  staircase  door'  ' 

he  said  in  an  excited  voice,"          .       Frontispiece. 

"An  unsuspected  doorway  was  thus 

revealed," Facing  page  104 

"He  caught  her  horse's  bridle,"          .        "  "      198 

"She   was  kneeling  with   her    face 

bowed  forward  on  her  arms,"       .       "          "      2.46 
PEN  DRAWINGS. 

Initial,          .......         Page  33 

"The  boy,  black-eyed    and  black-haired, 

seems  to  step  forward  daringly,"  .  "67 

"  It  was  twisted  into  an  irregular  sort  of 

corkscrew  shape,"  ....  "     92 

"At  this  juncture  he  happens  to  glance  up 
ward,"    "99 

"He  had  seen  a  human  figure  silently  and 

stealthily  creeping  toward  him,"    .  "no 

"  He   fell   forward  with   his   head  on   the 

table,"     .         .        .         .        .         .         .  "129 

"'Good-night,  Archie, '"    ....  "   147 

"Archibald  burst  out  laughing,"        .         .  "   164 

"'What  were  you  doing  in  this  room  ? '  de 
manded  the  baronet,"    ....  "    187 

"It  was  retreating  before  him,  like  a  will- 
o'-the-wisp,"  .....  "   226 

"There  could  be  no  more  words,"      .         .  "   232 


2043336 


A   CHAPTER  OF   AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

To  meet  with  a  new  edition  of  a  book 
written  by  oneself  twenty  years  ago  is  like 
meeting  a  child,  from  whom  one  parted 
during  its  infancy,  after  it  has  come  of  age. 
It  is  a  thing  to  suggest  reflections.  It  is 
true  that  time,  which  changes  the  child, 
does  not  change  the  book ;  but  time  changes 
the  writer  (not  altogether  for  the  worse,  it 
may  be  hoped) ,  and  the  book  no  longer  looks 
to  him  the  same  as  when  first  he  wrote  it. 
He  is  surprised  that  some  things  in  it  were 
not  done  worse ;  he  is  sorry  that  many 
things  in  it  were  not  done  better;  and  he 
probably  tells  himself  that,  were  it  now  to 
do  over  again,  it  would  turn  out  to  be  quite 
a  different  performance  from  stem  to  stern. 

Twenty-one  years  (I  believe)  have  passed 
7 


A   CHAPTER   OF   AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

since  "  Archibald  Malmaison  "  was  first  writ 
ten.  Since  1878  a  great  deal  has  happened 
in  the  world — in  science,  philosophy,  litera 
ture,  and  human  history  generally.  The 
conception  upon  which  the  story  was  based, 
namely,  that  there  may  be  two  contrasted 
personalities  in  a  man  (or  woman),  tho  of 
course  it  was  very  far  from  being  an  origi 
nal  conception,  was  by  no  means  so  widely 
accepted  as  a  possibility  as  it  now  is;  and 
could  not  be  called  a  hackneyed  motive  in 
fictitious  literature — or  in  the  literature  of 
fiction,  if  you  prefer  it  in  that  way.  But 
during  those  one-and-twenty  years  all  kinds 
of  occult  studies  have  become  the  fashion ; 
the  Societies  for  Psychic  Research  have 
flourished,  and  for  aught  I  know,  may  still 
be  flourishing;  the  practice  of  hypnotism 
has  become  an  absolute  nuisance ;  and  it  has 
been  established  that  a  person  may  have  not 
two  distinct  personalities  merely,  but  three 
or  more,  dwelling  together,  on  more  or  less 

hostile  terms  with  one  another,  on  this  or 
8 


A   CHAPTER   OF   AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

that  side  of  what  somebody  dubbed  the  sub 
liminal  consciousness.  Every  morning  you 
read,  with  a  yawn,  another  psychic  miracle 
in  the  daily  paper ;  and  there  is  yet  anoth 
er  to  regale  you  in  the  evening  edition. 
There  are,  as  I  estimate,  about  one  hundred 
prosperous  magazines  in  this  country  de 
voted  exclusively  to  the  discussion  of  topics 
which  two  decades  ago  would  have  stamped 
their  discussers  as  ripe  for  the  madhouse. 
Mental  healing  attacks  us  on  all  sides,  until 
only  the  Health  Board  any  longer  betrays 
alarm  at  it;  and  we  hear,  with  callous  ears, 
that  we  may  live  a  thousand  years,  that  we 
may  create  matter  out  of  ether,  that  we  can 
converse  in  New  York  with  our  bosom 
Adepts  in  Tibet,  without  so  much  as  a  wire 
or  even  a  beam  of  light  as  a  medium ;  and 
that  Man,  in  short,  apart  from  his  sublimi 
nal  consciousnesses  is  a  potential  God,  in 
a  fair  way  to  become  a  full-fledged  one. 
Gentlemen  we  have  known  all  our  lives, 
and  have  hitherto  respected,  inform  us  on 
9 


A   CHAPTER   OF   AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

our  way  down-town  in  the  Elevated  that 
they  have  attained  to  a  superior  plane  of 
soul-power,  and  can  now  sit  still  in  their 
offices  and  cause  streams  of  youth,  health, 
happiness,  and  wealth  to  flow  toward  them 
from  all  quarters  of  the  psychical  or  physical 
compass.  A  whole  new  language — or  jar 
gon  rather — has  sprung  into  existence,  to 
express  what  are  assumed  to  be  the  new 
ideas — or  the  "  New  Thought,"  as  the  jargon 
itself  would  term  it.  After  bidding  adieu 
to  your  superior-plane  expert  at  the  foot  of 
the  Elevated  steps  you  fall  into  the  arms 
of  a  Second  Adventist  on  the  corner  of  the 
street,  who  reminds  you  that  this  is  the  very 
year  which  will  see  the  battle  of  Armaged 
don,  and  the  heavens  rolled  up  like  a  scroll. 
Before  you  can  arrive  at  your  bank,  or  at 
your  pawnshop,  or  whatever  may  be  your 
destination,  you  are  liable  to  be  waylaid  by 
a  materializing  medium,  a  psychometrist,  a 
palmist,  and  an  astrologer,  who  incidentally 
suggest  to  you  that  nothing  is  except  what 


A   CHAPTER    OF    AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

does  not  appear  to  be.  After  these  things, 
and  after  transacting  your  humdrum,  neces 
sary  business,  it  is  a  real  relief  to  seek  some 
humble  hash-shop  and  feed  upon  corned 
beef  and  cabbage,  or  calves'  head  and  pluck, 
or  perform  some  other  disgustingly  obvious 
and  corporeal  act  by  way  of  comforting 
yourself  for  the  insupportable  burden  of  so 
much  transcendental  phenomena. 

But  in  1878  the  transcendental  incubus 
had  not  so  much  as  loomed  definitely  upon 
our  horizon,  much  less  rolled  over  and  over 
us,  and  flattened  us  into  imbecility.  The 
faculty  of  innocent  wonder  had  not  yet  died 
within  us  from  overfeeding.  Above  all, 
"  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde  "  had  not  been 
written  or  thought  of  yet;  and  altogether 
my  unpretending  little  narrative  had  its 
chance.  Indeed,  it  had  novelty  enough  for 
that  unsophisticated  age  to  arouse  a  good 
deal  of  indignant  or  sceptical  criticism  in 
certain  orthodox  quarters;  and  I  suppose 
I  have  received,  from  unknown  correspon- 


A   CHAPTER   OF   AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

dents,  as  many  letters  as  I  have  hairs  on  my 
head,  wanting  to  know  whether  the  story 
was  as  true  as  it  purported  to  be.  To  these 
I  uniformly  replied  that,  so  far  as  I  could 
tell,  it  might  be  true ;  but  pointing  out  that, 
inasmuch  as  the  events  described  appeared 
to  have  occurred  in  the  early  part  of  this 
century,  I  had  been  forced  to  rely  for  my 
information  upon  hearsay.  Keener  investi 
gators  charged  upon  me  with  the  discovery 
that  my  assertion  that  Archibald  was  born 
upon  leap-year  day,  1800,  involved  a  mani 
fest  impossibility,  because  in  1800  there  was 
no  leap-year  day.  But  I  declined  to  be 
stampeded  by  this  announcement;  and  I 
still  maintain,  that  if  Archibald  was  not 
born  upon  the  date  named,  he  was  not  born 
at  all. 

Still  other  persons,  ruminating  in  vacuo, 
wished  to  be  informed  as  to  the  exact  pro 
nunciation  of  the  hero's  surname,  Malmai- 
son.  Here  again  I  could  only  fall  back 
upoii  tradition.  Archibald,  if  I  remember 


12 


A    CHAPTER    OF   AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

aright,  was  the  son  of  the  well-known  Sir 
Clarence  Butt  Malmaison.  Now  it  is  well 
known  that  a  certain  historical  Clarence, 
mentioned  by  Shakespeare  and  others,  was 
said  to  have  been  drowned  in  a  butt  of 
Malmsey  wine — a  fact  which  seemed  to  me 
to  prove,  as  clearly  as  anything  could,  that 
the  surname  in  question  must  have  been 
spoken  as  if  written  Malmsey.  I  have  no 
wish  to  dogmatize ;  but  if  you  have  a  Clar 
ence  and  a  Butt,  what  except  Malmsey  could 
be  supposed  to  follow?  That  is  the  way 
history  is  written. 

About  a  hundred  hopeful  dramatists,  first 
and  last,  addressed  me  with  a  view  to  gain 
ing  my  consent  to  their  preparing  "  Archi 
bald  Malmaison  "  for  the  stage.  I  invariably 
granted  the  request  by  return  of  post,  pro 
vided  stamps  had  been  enclosed  for  that 
purpose,  because  I  was  well  assured  that 
when  my  dramatists  discovered  that  their 
culminating  scene  would  show  a  distraught 
young  gentleman  stumbling  into  a  dark 
13 


A   CHAPTER    OF   AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

room  and  dragging  a  skeleton  out  of  a  vel 
vet  dress,  the  quickest  curtain  in  theatrical 
history  would  not  save  his  piece  from  being 
damned.  That  is  one  point  in  which  the 
written  story  keeps  ahead  of  the  acted  play. 
There  is  nothing  like  a  veil  of  words  for 
rounding  off  awkward  corners;  but  the 
naked  eyes  of  the  pit  and  gallery  are  cruel. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  never  heard  a  second 
time  from  any  one  of  my  dramatic  corre 
spondents. 

But  upon  the  whole,  "  Archibald  "  had  no 
reason  to  complain ;  his  friends  greatly  out 
numbered  his  detractors.  I  blush  to  re 
member  in  what  eulogistic  terms  many  too- 
partial  reviewers  referred  to  the  wonderful 
imagination  of  his  creator.  In  truth,  what 
I  regard  as  imagination  had  very  little  to  do 
with  him.  He  came  about  owing  to  the 
fortuitous  combination  of  two  apparently 
unrelated  things.  In  the  first  place,  at 
some  remote  epoch,  I  had  happened  upon  a 
paragraph  in  a  newspaper,  relating  how  a 
14 


A    CHAPTER    OF    AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

certain  man  had  fallen  out  of  a  hay-loft  and 
alighted  on  his  head ;  after  which  his  mem 
ory  had  deserted  him,  and  he  failed  to  rec 
ognize  his  wife  and  family.  He  finally 
separated  from  them  therefore  and  lived  by 
himself,  and  was  even  divorced  at  last  by 
his  incomparably  better  half;  when  all  of  a 
sudden  he  one  morning  recovered  his  mis 
laid  wits  and  was  his  old  self  once  more, 
with  family  yearnings  as  fresh  and  adhesive 
as  new  paint.  That  paragraph  I  cut  out 
and  laid  aside,  with  a  vague  notion  that  it 
might  sometime  prove  useful.  It  lay  inert 
for  several  years,  however ;  until  I  took  up 
Thackeray's  "  English  Humorists  "  in  a  lei 
sure  hour,  and  read  his  allusion  to  the  find 
ing  at  Pompeii  of  the  mold,  in  the  ashes, 
of  a  human  body,  which  had  been  overtaken 
in  the  act  of  flight,  and  had  so  perished. 
During  the  lapse  of  eighteen  centuries  the 
body  itself  had  totally  disappeared ;  but 
on  filling  the  ashen  mold  with  plaster-of- 
Paris,  the  vanished  figure  reappeared  once 
15 


A    CHAPTER    OF    AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

more,  perfect  in  every  detail  of  form  as  in 
life.  That  struck  me  as  being  very  impres 
sive  ;  and  as  I  meditated  over  it,  wishing  as 
authors  will  that  I  could  find  a  way  of  "  us 
ing  "  it, — all  at  once  I  remembered  my  old 
newspaper  paragraph.  Hereupon  ensued 
some  process  of  mental  chemistry  which  I 
will  not  pretend  to  analyze;  but  when  it 
was  over,  the  germ  of  "  Archibald  "  was  in 
existence.  I  saw  a  lover  making  an  assign 
ation  with  a  woman ;  I  saw  the  loss  of  mem 
ory  unawares  fall  upon  him;  I  saw  him, 
after  a  lapse  of  years,  abruptly  resume  the 
thread  of  his  suspended  existence,  uncon 
scious  that  it  had  been  dropped  ;  and  I  saw 
him  proceed  to  keep  his  appointment  as  if 
only  minutes  instead  of  years  had  inter 
vened.  "  That  is  a  Story,"  said  I  to  myself 
with  emphatic  approval.  With  such  a  plot 
as  that,  any  fool  could  write  a  moving  tale. 
All  that  remained  was  to  arrange  the  sub 
ordinate  details. 

I  perceived,  to  begin  with,  that  the  story 
16 


A   CHAPTER    OF    AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

must  be  brief,  because  it  was  too  terrible  in 
its  denouement  to  bear  drawing  out.  The 
reader  must  be  able  to  finish  the  whole  thing 
at  a  sitting ;  in  fact,  it  must  actually  be  one 
of  those  stories  which  we  used  to  see  so 
often  mentioned  in  the  ancient  style  of 
reviews,  that  "  cannot  be  laid  down  until  the 
last  page  is  reached."  The  reader  must  be 
kept  on  tenterhooks  of  constantly  increasing 
sharpness  until  the  appalling  denouement 
suddenly  yawns  at  his  feet,  and  down  he 
goes  headlong.  If  he  were  kept  too  long 
he  would  begin  to  suspect,  and  then  the  fun 
would  be  over;  but  if  he  were  hurried 
blindly  through  only  a  moderate  distance  of 
pages,  and  were  moreover  beguiled  with 
the  notion  (to  be  sustained  by  whatever 
literary  devices  were  available)  that  the 
story  might  be  historically  veracious, 
why,  then,  there  would  be  a  fair  chance 
of  getting  him  to  the  door  of  that  lock 
ed  chamber  before  he  had  realized  what 
he  would  find  in  it.  And  at  this  point, 
2  17 


A   CHAPTER    OF    AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

by   the   way,    suffer    me    to    interpose    an 
anecdote. 

I  was  living  in  London  at  the  time  the 
story  was  published ;  and  one  evening  I 
dined  at  the  Garrick  Club  with  several  not 
able  men  of  letters,  among  whom  was  the 
famous  author  of  "The  Moonstone"  and 
"The  Woman  in  White."  Wilkie  Collins 
was  then  about  fifty-five  years  of  age,  and 
looked  quite  as  old  as  that ;  he  seemed  to  be 
rather  feeble  in  body,  and  his  dress  and  per 
sonal  aspect  indicated  that  he  had  small  re 
gard  for  physical  neatness.  His  head  was 
big  and  bulbous-looking,  with  a  dense,  un 
combed  beard  thatching  the  lower  part  of  it 
and  spreading  over  his  shirt-front :  he  was 
round-shouldered,  and  sat  in  a  stooping 
posture ;  his  hands  were  small  and  prettily 
formed,  and  he  had  a  trick  of  carrying 
them  hanging  in  front  of  him,  reminding 
me  of  a  rabbit  squatting  on  its  hind-legs. 
His  expression  was  gentle  but  sad,  or  even 
aggrieved ;  but  I  suspect  that  his  lugubrious- 
18 


A    CHAPTER    OF   AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

ness  had  a  physical  rather  than  a  psychic 
source;  he  was  not  in  good  health,  and  had 
evidently  practised  what  he  preached  in 
"  Man  and  Wife  "  only  too  well.  All  bodily 
exercise  was  anathema  to  him,  and  his 
digestion  had  languished  in  consequence. 
But  he  was  still  accounted  the  most  popular 
novelist  of  his  time;  and  what  he  said  on 
the  subject  of  fiction  must  be  worth  listen 
ing  to. 

Quoth  he:  "Oh,  Mr.  Hawthorne,  what  a 
chance  you  missed  in  that  story  of  'Archi 
bald  What-d'ye-call-him' !  Such  a  great 
plot  you  had  there — great !  What  a  chance 
fora  three-volume  novel!  Dear  me,  what 
possessed  you  to  waste  it  in  thirty  or  forty 
thousand  words?  Oh,  it  was  too  bad!  Just 
the  thing  for  three  volumes ;  and  you  put  it 
into  a  thing  that  one  can  read  at  a  sitting!  " 

This  shows  that  there  can  be  two  opinions 
on  the  subject,  for  I  was  inclined  to  attrib 
ute  the  success  of  the  book,  such  as  it  was, 
to  the  very  fact  which  Wilkie  Collins  depre- 
19 


A    CHAPTER    OF   AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

cated.  He  had  the  English  idea  of  the  time 
— the  "  Mudie's  Library  "  idea  we  might  call 
it;  and  I  had  the  American  idea  of  cram 
ming  as  much  as  possible  into  the  smallest 
possible  room.  He  may  have  been  right; 
but  at  all  events  "  Archibald  "  has  had  more 
readers,  I  believe,  than  any  other  story 
which  its  author  happens  to  have  written. 
No  doubt  we  often  carry  our  brevity  princi 
ple  to  an  extreme,  and  lose  a  chance  of 
making  good  literature  thereby.  There  is 
an  unresting,  breathless  air  about  much  of 
our  literary  product,  as  if  we  were  hurrying 
to  have  out  our  say  before  some  one  else 
stepped  in  and  got  the  floor  away  from  us. 
A  certain  leisureliness  is  indispensable  to 
some  of  the  best  and  most  permanent  liter 
ary  effects.  Be  that  as  it  may,  I  thought 
then,  and  still  think,  that  "  Archibald  'r  was 
quite  long  enough ;  and  that  had  it  been  in 
three  volumes,  a  new  edition  of  it  would 
not  now  be  coming  out. 

To  resume  the  thread  of  my  discourse. 

20 


A   CHAPTER   OF   AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

Having  got  my  central  incident,  it  remained 
to  lead  up  to  it  by  a  logical  process,  and 
to  surround  it  with  whatever  circumstance 
might  cause  it  to  appear  natural  and  prob 
able.  It  soon  became  obvious  that  there 
must  be  a  special  room  to  have  the  assigna 
tion  in ;  it  must  be  a  room  in  which  the  un 
happy  lady  might  remain  undisturbed  for 
several  )'ears,  or  until  her  lover  should  come 
to  let  her  out.  It  must  be  a  secret  cham 
ber,  therefore :  a  chamber  which  no  one  ex 
cept  Archibald  knew  of.  And  the  most 
natural  place  in  which  to  look  for  such  a 
chamber  was  some  old  English  country-seat, 
which  had  been  built  hundreds  of  years  ago, 
upon  an  irregular  plan,  with  passages  in  the 
thickness  of  the  walls,  and  with  unsuspect 
ed  places  hidden  here  and  there ;  something, 
in  short,  in  the  Castle  of  Udolpho  style. 
Nothing  was  easier.  I  constructed  my 
house  upon  the  plan  required,  and  devised 
an  entrance  to  my  secret  chamber  through 
a  revolving  chimney-piece.  Such  retreats 


A   CHAPTER   OF    AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

do  exist  in  old  English  country-seats,  and 
were  useful  in  the  days  when  a  man's  relig 
ious  or  political  opinions  might  put  his  neck 
in  peril.  But  the  existence  of  my  room 
must  have  been  forgotten  by  the  family; 
and  Archibald,  while  in  the  enjoyment  of 
his  "second  personality,"  must  have  discov 
ered  it  by  accident,  and  must  keep  his  dis 
covery  to  himself. 

The  house  and  the  room  having  been 
provided,  they  proceeded  to  create  the 
family,  for  these  things  in  fiction  often 
get  evolved  backward.  How  the  family 
chanced  to  be  named  Malmaison  I  have  for 
gotten  ;  perhaps  it  was  because  it  seemed 
desirable  to  foreshadow  something  sinister 
about  them,  and  mal-maison  answered  that 
purpose.  The  name  required  them  to  be 
of  French  extraction ;  and  Huguenot  exiles 
accordingly  they  became.  In  order  to  break 
the  way  for  the  peculiarities  of  the  hero  of 
the  tale,  suggestions  were  thrown  out  as  to 
mysterious  doings  or  conditions  of  ancestors 


22 


A   CHAPTER    OF   AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

of  his;  there  was  a  reputed  wizard  among 
them ;  and  Sir  Eustace  or  Sir  Charles  had 
possessed  the  power  of  vanishing  at  will. 
But  lest,  by  laying  the  scene  of  the  actual 
story  too  far  back  in  time  to  make  it  appear 
historically  veritable,  something  might  be 
lost  toward  convincing  the  reader,  it  was 
decided  to  make  Archibald  a  denizen  of  the 
present  century ;  and  what  better  day  of  his 
birth  than  the  2gth  of  February,  which 
would  give  him  a  birthday  once  in  four 
years  only?  I  resolved  at  the  same  time  to 
make  the  alternations  of  his  duplex  person 
alities  occur  once  in  seven  years;  because 
this,  combined  with  his  quadrennial  birth 
days,  would  operate  to  render  the  confiding 
reader  liable  to  regard  him  as  altogether  an 
exceptional  sort  of  man.  And  because  of 
the  comicality  of  a  man's  being  only  one- 
fourth  as  old  by  birthdays  as  he  was  in 
reality,  I  gave  to  his  father,  Sir  Clarence, 
the  disposition  of  a  clumsy  humorist,  who 
should  make  a  standing  joke  of  the  matter. 
23 


A   CHAPTER    OF    AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

Upon  such  threads  may  hang  the  characters 
of  the  people  of  fiction ! 

Coming  now  into  closer  quarters  with  the 
story,  I  perceived  the  necessity  of  two  more 
elements — a  woman  and  a  villain.  In  order 
to  preserve  the  unities  I  grouped  the  fami 
lies  of  these  two  characters  in  the  immediate 
neighborhood  of  the  Malmaison  estate ;  and 
little  Kate  Battledown  became  the  childish 
playmate  of  Archibald,  and,  during  his 
"second  state,"  his  little  lady-love.  As  for 
Richard  Pennroyal,  the  villain,  he  must  be 
young  enough  to  act  as  the  rival  of  Archi 
bald  in  his  love,  when  the  latter  should 
grow  old  enough  to  become  seriously  en 
amored  of  the  beautiful  Kate ;  and  his 
moral  character  must  be  painted  as  in  all 
respects  what  the  character  of  an  English 
gentleman  should  not  be.  Kate  was  an 
heiress,  in  order  to  make  it  natural  for 
Richard,  who  desperately  needed  money,  to 
woo  her  for  his  wife.  Moreover,  inasmuch 
as  in  marrying  Richard  she  was  to  follow 
24 


A    CHAPTER    OF    AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

the  dictates  of  her  ambition  and  not  of  her 
affections,  she  had  to  be  a  young  lady  not 
in  all  respects  admirable ;  though  she  was 
saved  from  actual  baseness  by  the  fact  that 
from  the  age  of  fourteen  to  that  of  twenty- 
one,  Archibald,  whom  she  had  originally 
fancied,  reverted  to  his  imbecile  state,  and 
forgot  all  about  his  love  for  her  and  his  ani 
mosity  against  Richard.  It  won't  do  in  fic 
tion  to  divert  all  sympathy  from  your  hero 
ine,  tho  a  bit  of  sinister  shadow  on  her, 
here  and  there,  does  no  harm.  Kate's  end 
was  to  be  tragic,  and  it  was  to  be  due  to  her 
misdeeds;  but  we  must  retain  the  ability  to 
be  sorry  for  her. 

I  now  had  my  three  leading  personages 
accounted  for,  and  sufficiently  indicated  as 
to  their  main  characteristics.  The  subor 
dinates  were  filled  in  to  suit  and  enhance 
the  effect  of  the  protagonists.  Thus  I  had 
an  old  doctor,  to  talk  about  the  physiologi 
cal  and  psychical  peculiarities  of  the  situa 
tion;  and  a  bluff  Colonel  Battledown,  to  be 
25 


A    CHAPTER    OF   AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

Kate's  father;  and  a  couple  of  extra  women 
or  so  to  give  variety  to  the  scenes.  After 
informing  myself,  by  due  recourse  to  the 
proper  authorities,  as  to  the  local  color  of 
the  time  and  place,  I  was  ready  to  begin 
writing. 

According  to  my  recollections  it  took  me 
less  time  to  write  "  Malmaison"  than  it  did 
to  arrange  the  scenario.  It  was  an  easy 
story  to  write,  the  chief  difficulty  being  to 
abstain  from  too  much  psychological  specu 
lation,  which,  however  meritorious  in  itself, 
all  but  one  reader  in  a  hundred  would  be 
certain  to  skip.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  after 
the  book  was  finished  I  cut  out  a  whole 
chapter  devoted  to  metaphysical  reflections ; 
and  I  have  never  regretted  the  sacrifice.  I 
am  not  sure  that  there  is  not  too  much  of 
that  sort  of  thing  remaining,  as  it  is.  As  a 
general  rule  (to  which  there  are  notable  ex 
ceptions  of  course),  a  story  should  be  a  story 
and  nothing  else:  the  account  of  things  seen 

and  done.     The  foundations  upon  which  it 
26 


A    CHAPTER    OF   AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

is  based  may  be  as  deep  and  transcendental 
as  you  please ;  but  all  the  metaphysical 
and  speculative  material  should  have  been 
thoroughly  digested  and  assimilated  by  the 
writer  before  he  begins  his  work,  and  not 
be  seen  by  the  reader  except  in  living  and 
organic  form.  Give  him  the  facts,  and  let 
him  dig  out  the  moral  and  the  meaning  for 
himself,  if  he  be  so  disposed.  All  our  real 
knowledge  of  the  soul  and  the  things  ap 
pertaining  to  it  is  derived  from  living  men 
and  women,  their  deeds  and  words;  from 
these  we  draw  our  inferences.  I  confess  I 
have  no  liking  for  psychological  analysis,  or 
any  other  sort  of  analysis,  in  novels.  It  is 
a  sign  of  weakness  or  indolence  on  the 
writer's  part,  not  of  strength  and  grasp; 
and  I  am  all  the  better  persuaded  of  this 
because  I  myself  have  sometimes  been 
charged,  not  without  justice,  of  being  a 
psychologico-analytic  novelist.  As  soon  as 
you  begin  to  dissect  nature,  she  becomes 

lifeless  on  your  hands,  and  your  results  are 
27 


A    CHAPTER    OF    AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

vitiated  by  that  fact.  Keep  her  alive, 
and  she  will  incidentally  reveal  secrets 
which  death  can  never  show.  Our  immortal 
story-tellers  —  Homer,  Scheherezade,  Boc 
caccio,  Shakespeare,  Rabelais — are  perenni 
ally  fresh  because  they  incarnate  their  spiri 
tual  truth  in  forms  of  flesh  and  blood,  who 
live  and  rejoice  forever.  We  see  the  truth, 
if  we  care  to  look  for  it,  through  the  forms, 
which  is  the  way  it  was  meant  to  be  seen. 
Emerson  says  that  it  is  a  sufficient  explana 
tion  of  material  nature  "  that  God  will  teach 
a  human  soul."  And  if  that  means  of  in 
struction  is  chosen  by  the  Creator,  then 
surely  story-tellers  ought  to  be  content 
with  it! 

I  have  written  many  things  which  seemed 
to  me  in  all  respects  better  than  "  Malmai- 
son" ;  but  there  is  no  reason  why  an  author 
should  be  a  good  judge  of  his  own  work. 
There  are  many  reasons  why  he  should  not 
be.  It  has  been  remarked  that  in  all  call 
ings  a  man  does  his  best  thing  easiest.  But 
28 


A    CHAPTER    OF   AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

for  the  very  reason  that  it  is  easiest  to  him 
—that  his  faculties  apply  themselves  readily 
and  spontaneously  to  the  work — that  it  ap 
pears  familiar,  or  a  matter-of-course  to  him 
— he  is  unable  to  view  the  result  in  its  true 
light.  We  do  not  value  what  comes  to  us 
by  nature,  as  it  were.  We  attach  impor 
tance  to  what  it  has  cost  us  time  and  effort 
to  discover  or  accomplish.  But  the  energy 
we  expended  in  overcoming  difficulties  must 
be  subtracted  from  the  reservoir  of  force 
which  would  have  gone  to  strengthen  and 
enrich  a  matter  in  which  difficulties  were 
not  encountered.  We  are  absurdly  compla 
cent  over  the  struggle  that  we  have  made ; 
v/hereas  the  onlookers  care  nothing  about 
that,  but  are  concerned  solely  with  the  value 
as  art,  or  what  not,  of  that  which  the  strug 
gle  has  produced.  The  dog  which  has 
learned  to  stand  on  its  hind-legs  is  vain  of 
its  accomplishment;  it  is  the  result  of  long 
training  and  painful  effort.  The  man 

stands  on  his  hind-legs  infinitely  better,  but 
29 


A    CHAPTER    OF   AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

is  not  conceited  about  it  because  it  is  the 
natural  thing  for  him  to  do.  I  suppose  the 
popularity  of  "  Malmaison  "  was  due  to  an 
"  interest "  aroused  by  the  oddity  of  the 
events  of  the  story  and  the  sequence  of 
their  development;  and  still  more  to  a 
strong  human  sympathy  felt  for  the  hero 
and  heroine  in  their  terrible  fate — which 
overtook  them  precisely  in  the  spot  where 
they  had  hoped  to  enjoy  their  greatest  felic 
ity.  Their  tragedy  redeemed  their  sin  from 
its  vulgarity,  and  enables  us  to  pity  where 
we  were  about  to  condemn.  In  its  concep 
tion  the  story  conforms  to  the  requirements 
of  ethics  and  of  art;  but  there  is  no  need 
for  me  to  point  out  how  crudely  and  im 
perfectly  the  theme  is  worked  out  in  the 
following  pages.  I  wish,  for  the  sake  of 
literature,  that  it  had  been  treated  by  the 
author  of  "  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde  "  in 
stead  of  by  me. 

The  story  was  published  in   England  by 
Bentley,  in   a  series  called  the  Empire  Li- 
3° 


A   CHAPTER   OF    AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

brary,  and  in  America  by  the  present  pub 
lishers,  who  handled  it  so  skilfully  that  its 
author  is  commonly  referred  to,  I  believe, 
as  "  the  man  who  wrote  '  Malmaison . '  "  And 
now,  sixteen  years  later,  the  little  book, 
with  a  new  bib  and  tucker,  presents  itself 
to  the  public  once  more.  For  my  part,  I 
entertain  a  kindly  sentiment  toward  it;  but 
I  can  not  help  feeling  that  only  its  faults  are 
mine.  Its  merits  it  owes  to  sources  over 
which  I  claim  no  ownership. 

JULIAN  HAWTHORNE. 


ARCHIBALD  MALMAISON. 


i. 

RCHIBALD  MALMAISON  was 
the  second  son  of  Sir  Clarence 
Butt  Malmaison,  of  Malmaisonj 
Sussex.    He  had  the  odd  dis 
tinction   of  being  born  on  the 
29th  of  February,    1800.     His 
elder  brother,  Edward,  born    1798, 
died  before  him,  as  will  be  herein 
after  shown.      There  were  no  other 
brothers,    but   four   girls    appeared 
after  Archibald,  two  of  whom  died 
in  childhood  of  scarlet  fever,  while 
the  other  two  grew  up  to  be  mar 
ried.     They    have    nothing    to    do 
3  33 


ARC 'HIBALD    MALMAISON. 

with  the  story,  and  will  not  be  mentioned 
again. 

The  Malmaisons,  as  their  name  denotes, 
were  of  French  descent — Huguenots.  Like 
many  other  emigrants,  they  yielded,  in  the 
course  of  a  generation  or  two,  to  a  barbar 
ous  mispronunciation  of  their  patronymic, 
which  came  to  be  spoken  of  as  if  spelt 
"  Malmsey." 

How  it  happened  that  the  chateau  of 
the  Empress  Josephine  was  christened  by 
the  same  name,  I  know  not ;  at  all  events,  the 
Sussex  Malmaisons  have  prior  claim  to  the 
title.  The  estate,  which  embraced  between 
seven  and  eight  hundred  acres,  lay  in  that 
portion  of  the  county  which  borders  up 
on  the  junction-line  of  Kent  and  Surrey. 
Colonel  Battledown,  the  Peninsular  soldier, 
owned  the  adjoining  estate  in  Kent;  while 
the  Surrey  corner  was  occupied,  at  the  epoch 
of  this  story,  by  the  Honorable  Richard 
Pennroyal — he  whose  father,  Lord  Epsom, 
is  said  to  have  won  ninety  thousand  pounds 
34 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

from  Fox  in  a  single  night's  play.  The 
three  families  had  been  on  a  friendly  foot 
ing  with  each  other  ever  since  the  early 
part  of  the  reign  of  George  III. 

Sir  Clarence  had  been  an  ally  of  the 
father  of  the  Honorable  Richard  in  Parlia 
ment  (they  were  both  Whigs),  and  Colonel 
Battledown,  tho  a  Tory,  was  such  capital 
company  as  not  only  to  compensate  for  his 
political  derelictions,  but  even  to  render 
them  a  matter  for  mutual  congratulation— 
they  so  enlivened  the  conversation !  In 
truth,  I  suppose  the  three  gentlemen  must 
have  had  many  a  boisterous  discussion  over 
their  nightly  three  or  four  bottles  apiece 
of  claret,  and  after  their  hard  day  across 
country. 

The  Honorable  Richard,  by  the  bye,  was 
by  far  the  youngest  of  the  three ;  at  the 
time  of  Archibald's  birth  he  was  not  much 
over  twenty;  but  he  had  a  cool,  strong 
brain,  and  quite  as  much  gravity  as  his 
seniors,  over  whom,  in  fact,  he  seems  to 
35 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

have  exercised  a  species  of  ascendency. 
Possibly  he  inherited  something  of  his  noble 
father's  ability — that  of  playing  quietly  for 
big  stakes  when  all  the  odds  were  in  his 
favor.  At  all  events,  in  the  year  1801  he 
married  Miss  Jane  Malmaison,  the  baronet's 
sister,  who  was  fifteen  years  older  than  he, 
but  who  brought  him  fifty  thousand  pounds 
— a  not  unimportant  consideration  to  him 
at  that  time. 

Mrs.  Pennroyal  has  one  claim  upon  our 
notice,  and  only  one:  seven  years  after  her 
marriage,  at  the  age  of  forty-two,  she  com 
pletely  lost  her  memory,  and  became  rather 
idiotic,  and  a  few  years  later  contrived 
to  fall  into  an  ornamental  fish-pond,  and 
drowned  there  before  her  attendants  missed 
her.  She  was  buried  with  much  stateli- 
ness ;  but  it  is  to  be  feared  that  few  persons 
missed  her  even  then.  She  left  no  children. 

Was  poor  old  Jane  the  first  member  of 
the  Malmaison  line  who  had  shown  any 
special  weakness  or  peculiarity  in  the  upper 
36 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

story?  There  was  a  hoary  tradition  to  the 
effect  that  the  son  or  grandson  of  the  first 
emigrant  had  made  some  compact  or  other 
with  the  Evil  One,  the  terms  of  which  were 
that  he  (the  grandson)  was  to  prolong  his 
terrestrial  existence  for  one  hundred  and 
forty  years  by  the  ingenious  device  of  living 
only  every  alternate  seven  years,  the  inter 
vening  periods  to  be  passed  in  a  sort  of  hi 
bernation.  In  return  for  this  accommodation 
he  was,  of  course,  to  make  II.  S.  M.  the 
usual  acknowledgment ! 

The  final  upshot  of  this  bargain — as  is 
usually  the  way  in  these  cases — is  not 
known.  Did  the  worthy  gentleman  work 
his  way  into  his  third  half  century?  And 
had  he,  by  that  time,  acquired  astuteness 
sufficient  to  cheat  the  other  party  to  the 
contract  of  his  due  ?  History  is  silent ;  the 
only  thing  asserted  with  any  appearance  of 
confidence  is  that  Sir  Eustace  de  Malmaison 
possessed  the  power  of  vanishing  at  will 
from  the  eyes  of  men.  Nay,  he  would 
37 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

seem  to  have  bequeathed  this  useful  accom 
plishment  to  certain  of  his  descendants ; 
for  there  is  among  the  family  documents  a 
curious  narrative,  signed  and  witnessed, 
describing  how  a  member  of  the  family,  in 
the  time  (I  think)  of  the  Second  Pretender, 
did,  being  hard  pressed  by  the  minions  of 
the  German  Prince,  and  pursued  by  them 
into  the  extreme  eastern  chamber  of  his 
house  of  Malmaison,  suddenly  and  without 
warning  render  himself  invisible,  insomuch 
that  nothing  of  him  remained  save  his  dag 
ger  and  the  plume  which  he  bore  in  his 
cap.  This  eastern  chamber  had,  at  the 
time,  but  one  outlet,  and  that  was  into  a 
room  already  guarded  by  the  soldiery. 

The  chronicle  goes  on  to  say  that  the  dis 
appearance  was  not  final :  the  mysterious 
fugitive  reappeared  on  the  third  day,  in  the 
same  spot  where  he  had  vanished,  but  ap 
parently  rather  the  worse  for  wear.  He 
was  at  first  taken  for  a  spirit,  and  all  fled 
before  him ;  but  he,  going  hastily  forward 
38 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

to  the  dining-hall,  and  finding  a  great  sir 
loin  of  beef  set  out  upon  the  board,  forth 
with  fell  to,  and  in  a  wondrous  short  time 
devoured  the  whole  thereof,  drinking  also  a 
gallon  and  a  half  of  the  wine  of  Burgundy. 
This  exploit  restored  the  belief  of  the  house 
hold  in  the  material  consistency  of  their 
master,  and  thereupon  was  much  thanks 
giving,  feasting,  and  rejoicing.  But  the 
secret  of  the  disappearance  never  was  re 
vealed. 

I  give  these  musty  old  details  for  what 
they  are  worth ;  they  may  perhaps  be  con 
strued  as  an  indication  that  the  race  of  Mal- 
maison  had  some  peculiarities  of  its  own. 

As  for  Archibald,  he  was  rather  neglect 
ed  than  otherwise.  He  was  a  dull  and 
stolid  baby,  neither  crying  nor  crowing 
much :  he  would  sit  all  day  over  a  single 
toy,  not  playing  with  it,  but  holding  it  idly 
in  his  hands  or  between  his  knees.  He 
could  neither  crawl,  walk,  nor  talk  till  long 
after  the  usual  time  for  such  accomplish- 
39 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

ments.  It  seemed  as  if  he  had  made  up  his 
mind  to  live  according  to  his  birthdays — 
that  is,  four  times  as  slow  as  other  people. 
The  only  things  he  did  do  well  were  eat 
ing  and  sleeping :  he  never  appeared  to  be 
thoroughly  awake,  nor  was  his  appetite  ever 
entirely  satisfied.  As  might  be  supposed, 
therefore,  his  body  grew  apace ;  and  at 
seven  years  old  (or  one  and  three  quarters, 
as  the  facetious  Baronet  would  have  it)  he 
weighed  twelve  good  pounds  more  than  his 
brother  Edward,  who  was  two  years  his 
senior,  tho,  to  be  sure,  not  a  specially  robust 
child. 

For  the  rest,  poor  Archibald  seemed  to 
be  affectionate  in  a  dim,  inarticulate  way, 
tho  his  sympathies  were  confined  within 
somewhat  narrow  limits.  He  loved  a  certain 
brindled  cat  that  he  had  more  than  anything 
else ;  next  to  her,  his  little  baby  sister ;  and 
oddly  enough,  he  conceived  a  sort  of  dog- 
like  admiration  for  the  Honorable  Richard 

Pennroyal — a  compliment  which   that  per- 
40 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

sonage  did  nothing  to  deserve,  and  which 
he  probably  did  not  desire.  He  had  also  a 
distinct  feeling  for  localities ;  he  was  never 
quite  at  his  ease  except  in  the  nursery-room 
where  he  slept;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  he 
never  failed  to  exhibit  symptoms  of  distrust 
and  aversion  when  he  was  carried  into  the 
East  chamber  —  that  in  which  his  great 
grandfather  had  effected  his  mysterious 
self-effacement.  But  the  only  thing  that 
was  certain  to  make  him  cry  was  to  be 
brought  into  the  company  of  little  Kate 
Battledown,  the  colonel's  only  child,  a  yeai 
or  two  younger  than  Archibald,  and  univer 
sally  admitted  to  be  the  prettiest  and  most 
graceful  baby  in  the  neighborhood.  But 
Archibald,  up  to  his  seventh  year,  would  do 
anything  to  get  away  from  her — short  of 
walking. 

In  a  word,  he   exhibited   such   symptoms 

of  a  deficient  and   perverted   understanding 

as  would  have    gained  him — had    he    been 

of  humbler  birth — the   descriptive    title  of 

41 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

"natural."  Being  a  son  of  vSir  Clarence 
Butt  Malmaison,  he  was  considered  to  be 
peculiar  only.  The  old  wives  of  the  village 
maintained  that  he  was  the  sort  that  could 
see  elves,  and  that,  if  one  but  knew  how, 
he  might  be  induced  to  reveal  valuable 
secrets  and  to  confer  magic  favors.  But, 
looking  the  other  way,  he  was  to  be  dreaded 
as  a  possible  (tho  involuntary)  agent  of 
evil;  especially  perilous  was  it,  these  ven 
erable  dames  would  affirm,  to  become  the 
object  of  his  affection  or  caresses — a  dogma 
which  received  appalling  confirmation  in 
the  fate  of  the  brindled  cat,  who,  after 
having  been  caught  by  the  leg  in  a  trap 
intended  for  a  less  respectable  robber 
of  henroosts,  was  finished  by  a  bull- 
terrier,  who  took  advantage  of  her  em 
barrassed  circumstances  to  pay  off  upon 
her  a  grudge  of  long  standing.  This 
tragedy  occurred  in  January  of  the  year 
1807,  and  produced  a  noticeable  effect 

upon    Master    Archibald    Malmaison.      He 
42 


ARCHIBALD    MALMA1SON. 

neither  wept  nor  tore  his  hair,  but  took 
the  far  more  serious  course  of  losing  his 
appetite. 

The  most  remarkable  part  of  the  story  is 
yet  to  come.  No  one  had  told  him  that  the 
cat  was  dead,  and  the  cat,  having  adventur 
ous  propensities,  had  often  been  away  from 
home  for  days  at  a  time  without  leave 
or  warning.  Nevertheless,  Archibald  was 
immediately  aware  of  her  fate,  and  even 
seemed  (judging  from  some  expressions 
that  escaped  him)  to  have  divined  the  man 
ner  of  it.  He  then  gave  intimation  of  an 
earnest  desire  to  view  the  remains ;  but  in 
this  he  could  not  be  gratified,  for  they  had 
already  been  secretly  interred  in  an  obscure 
corner  of  the  back  garden.  Will  it  be  be 
lieved  that  the  "  peculiar"  child  hereupon  got 
upon  his  fat  legs,  and,  without  either  haste 
or  hesitation,  deliberately  ambled  out  of  the 
nursery,  along  the  corridor,  down  the  stairs, 
across  the  hall,  through  the  door,  and  so 
round  to  the  back  garden  and  to  the  very 
43 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

identical  spot  where  poor  Tabby  had  been 
deposited ! 

The  fact  is  sufficiently  well  attested ;  I 
am  not  aware  that  it  has  ever  been  account 
ed  for.  The  boy  had  never  in  his  life 
walked  so  far  before,  altho  his  limbs  were 
perfectly  developed  and  able  for  much 
longer  pilgrimages.  He  did  not  resist  be 
ing  led  away;  but,  as  has  been  said,  he 
neglected  his  bread  and  milk,  and  every 
few  days  returned  to  the  back  garden,  and 
stood  beside  the  grave  in  the  cold,  looking 
fixedly  at  it,  but  making  no  active  demon 
stration  whatever.  This  went  on  for  about 
six  weeks,  and  attracted  a  good  deal  of  cu 
riosity  in  the  neighborhood.  At  length,  in 
the  latter  part  of  February,  Archibald  had 
a  sort  of  fit,  apparently  of  an  epileptic  na 
ture.  On  recovering  from  it  he  called  for 
a  glass  of  milk,  and  drank  it  with  avidity ; 
he  then  fell  asleep,  and  did  not  awake  again 
for  thirty-six  hours. 

By  this  time  he  was  a  personage  of  more 
44 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

importance  at  Malmaison  than  he  had  ever 
yet  been  in  his  small  life.  The  wise  folk 
who  stood  around  his  crib  hazarded  various 
predictions  as  to  the  issue  of  his  unnatural 
slumber.  Some  said  he  would  lose  what 
little  wit  he  had ;  others,  that  he  would 
become  an  acknowledged  wizard ;  others, 
again.,  that  he  would  never  wake  up  at  all. 
In  short,  like  other  prophets,  they  foretold 
everything  except  that  which  was  actually 
to  happen ;  and  they  would  have  foretold 
that  too,  if  they  had  thought  of  it  in  time. 


45 


II. 

ARCHIBALD  awoke  at  length,  and  sat  up 
in  bed.  He  opened  his  mouth,  apparently 
for  the  purpose  of  saying  something,  but 
his  tongue  refused  to  articulate  any  recog 
nizable  words.  An  irregular,  disjointed 
sound  made  itself  heard,  like  the  vague  out 
cry  of  an  infant;  and  then,  as  if  angry  at 
his  own  failure,  he  set  up  a  loud  and  indig 
nant  wail,  muffled  from  time  to  time  by  the 
cramming  of  his  fingers  into  his  mouth. 

Whatever  else  was  the  matter  with  the 
child,  it  was  evident  that  he  was  hungry — 
as,  indeed,  he  well  might  be.  Some  bread 
and  milk  was  brought  to  him,  that  being 
his  favorite  food ;  but  to  the  general  aston 
ishment  and  dismay,  he  did  not  seem  to 
know  what  it  was,  altho  he  continued  to 

exhibit    every  symptom  of  a  ravenous  and 
46 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

constantly  augmenting  appetite.  They 
tried  him  with  every  imaginable  viand,  but 
in  vain ;  they  even  put  morsels  into  his 
mouth,  but  he  had  lost  the  power  of  masti 
cation,  and  could  not  retain  them.  The 
more  they  labored,  the  greater  became  his 
exasperation,  until  at  last  there  was  such  a 
hubbub  and  confusion  on  the  score  of  Mas 
ter  Archibald  as  that  hitherto  rather  insig 
nificant  little  personage  should  have  felt 
proud  to  occasion. 

Among  the  anxious  and  bewildered  peo 
ple  who  thronged  the  nursery  at  this  junc 
ture  was  a  young  woman  who  acted  as  wet- 
nurse  to  the  latest  born  of  the  Malmaisons, 
a  baby-girl  three  months  old. 

She  was  a  healthy  and  full-bodied  peas 
ant,  and  as  she  pressed  forward  to  have  her 
look  at  the  now-frantic  Archibald,  she  held 
the  nursing  infant — the  only  serene  and 
complacent  member  of  the  assemblage — to 
her  open  breast.  Archibald  caught  sight  of 
her,  and  immediately  reached  toward  her, 
47 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

arms,  mouth,  and  all,  accompanying  the  ac 
tion  by  an  outcry  so  eager,  impatient,  and 
gluttonous  that  it  was  capable  of  only  one 
interpretation  ; — an  incredible  interpreta 
tion,  certainly,  but  that  made  no  difference  ; 
there  was  nothing  else  to  be  done.  Honest 
Maggie,  giggling  and  rubicund,  put  aside 
her  complacent  nursling  (who  thereupon 
became  anything  but  complacent)  and  took 
to  her  kind  bosom  this  strapping  and  unrea 
sonable  young  gentleman,  who  had  already 
got  many  of  his  second  teeth.  That  did 
not  prevent  him  from  making  an  uncon 
scionably  good  supper;  and  thenceforth  the 
only  person  likely  to  be  disturbed  by  his 
new  departure  in  gormandizing  was  Maggie 
herself.  Everything  being  thus  happily 
arranged,  the  household  dispersed  about 
its  business,  the  Baronet  declaring  with  a 
great  laugh  that  he  had  always  said  Archie 
was  but  a  babe  in  arms,  and  this  proved 
it! 

Dr.  Rollinson,  however  (the  elder  doctor, 
48 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

that  is — father  of  the  present*  distinguished 
bearer  of  the  name),  had  witnessed  this 
scene  with  something  more  than  ordinary 
wonder  or  amusement ;  it  had  puzzled,  but 
also  interested  him  extremely.  He  was  less 
of  a  conservative  than  many  of  his  profes 
sion ;  he  kept  his  mind  open,  and  was  not 
disinclined  to  examine  into  odd  theories, 
and  even,  perhaps,  to  originate  a  few  such 
himself  upon  occasion.  The  question  that 
now  confronted  him  and  challenged  his  in 
genuity  was,  What  was  the  matter  with 
Archibald?  Why  had  the  boy  suddenly 
gone  back  to  the  primitive  source  of  nour 
ishment,  not  from  mere  childish  whim,  but 
from  actual  ignorance,  as  it  seemed,  that 
nourishment  was  obtainable  in  any  other 
way?  An  obvious  reply  would  be  that  the 
boy  had  become  wholly  idiotic;  but  the 
more  Dr.  Rollinson  revolved  this  rough  and 
ready  explanation,  the  less  satisfactory  did 
he  find  it.  He  wisely  decided  to  study  the 

*  Now  also  the  late  :  vide  supra. 
4  49 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

symptoms  and  weigh   the  evidence   before 
committing  himself  one  way  or  the  other. 

The  first  result  of  his  observations  was  to 
confirm  his  impression  that  Archibald  was 
not  idiotic.  There  was  a  certain  sort  of  va 
cancy  in  the  child's  expression,  but  it  was 
the  vacancy  of  ignorance  rather  than  of 
foolishness,  And  ignorant  to  a  surprising 
degree  he  was.  He  had  at  no  time  been 
regarded  as  a  boy  of  large  attainments ;  but 
what  he  knew  before  his  strange  seizure 
was,  to  what  he  knew  after  it,  as  Bacon  to  a 
plowman.  Had  he  been  newly  born  into 
the  world  he  could  not  have  shown  less 
acquaintance  with  it,  so  far  as  intellectual 
comprehension  went;  his  father,  mother, 
sister — all  were  alike  strangers  to  him ;  he 
gazed  at  them  with  intent  but  unrecogni- 
zing  eyes;  he  never  looked  up  when  his 
name  was  spoken,  nor  did  he  betray  any 
sign  of  understanding  the  talk  that  went  on 
around  him.  His  own  thoughts  and  wants 
were  expressed  by  inarticulate  sounds  and 
5° 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

by  gestures ;  but  the  mystery  of  speech  evi 
dently  interested  him,  and  he  studied  the 
movements  of  the  lips  of  those  who  spoke 
to  him  -with  a  keen,  grave  scrutiny  to  them 
highly  amusing — except  in  the  case  of  his 
poor  old  Aunt  Jane,  who  turned  quite  pale 
under  his  inquisition,  and  declared  that  he 
must  be  bewitched,  for  altho  he  seemed 
to  know  nothing,  yet  he  had  the  knowing- 
est  look  of  any  child  she  ever  saw.  Herein 
Aunt  Jane  gave  utterance  to  a  fact  that  was 
beginning  to  be  generally  acknowledged. 
Whatever  Archibald  had  lost,  it  was  beyond 
dispute  that  he  had  somehow  come  into 
possession  of  a  fund  of  native  intelligence 
(the  term  "  mother  wit  "  seems  inappropriate 
under  the  circumstances)  to  which  he  had 
heretofore  been  a  stranger.  He  might  have 
forgotten  his  own  name,  and  the  mother 
that  bore  him ;  but  he  had  learned  how  to 
learn,  and  was  for  the  first  time  in  his  life 
wide  awake.  This  was  very  much  like 
saying  that  he  was  a  new  boy  in  the  old 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

skin ;  and  this,  again,  was  little  better  than 
a  euphemism  for  changeling.  Was  he  a 
changeling,  after  all  ?  The  sage  old  women 
whom  we  have  already  quoted  asserted  con 
fidently  that  he  was,  and  that,  however 
much  he  pretended  to  ignorance,  he  really 
knew  vastly  more  than  any  plain  human 
child  did  or  ought  to  know.  And  as  a  war 
rant  for  this  opinion  they  brought  forward 
evidence  that  Master  Archibald,  having 
been  left  alone  one  day  in  the  nursery,  had 
been  overheard  humming  to  himself  the 
words  of  a  certain  song — a  thing,  it  was 
argued,  which  he  could  not  have  done  had 
he  known  no  words  at  all ;  and  therefore  he 
was  a  changeling. 

Dr.  Rollinson  happened  to  hear  this  argu 
ment,  and  thought  it  worth  while  to  in 
quire  further  into  the  matter.  Such  testi 
mony  as  he  could  collect  went  to  confirm 
the  truth  of  the  story.  Not  only  so,  but  the 
song  itself,  if  the  witnesses  were  to  be  be 
lieved,  so  far  from  being  an  ordinary  child- 
52 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

ish  ditty,  was  some  matter  of  pretty  maids 
and  foaming  wine-cups  that  Tom  Moore 
might  have  written,  and  that  gentlemen 
sometimes  trolled  out  an  hour  or  two  after 
dinner.  Now  this  looked  very  black  for 
Archibald.  Further  investigation,  how 
ever,  put  a  somewhat  different  face  upon 
the  affair.  It  transpired  that  the  song  had 
been  often  sung  in  Archibald's  hearing, 
and  before  his  fit,  by  the  Honorable 
Richard,  for  whom,  as  has  been  said,  the 
boy  had  taken  a  queer  fancy. 

And,  perhaps  because  affection  is  a  good 
teacher,  the  boy  had  acquired  the  power  of 
repeating  some  of  the  verses  to  himself, -of 
course  without  understanding  a  syllable  of 
them,  and  very  likely  without  himself  be 
ing  conscious  of  what  he  was  doing.  He 
hummed  them  over,  in  short,  exactly  as  a 
pre-occupied  parrot  might  do ;  and  always  at 
a  certain  time,  namely,  after  he  had  been  put 
to  bed  aifd  was  staring  up  at  the  darkening 
ceiling  previous  to  falling  asleep.  This,  by 
53 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

itself,  was  nothing  very  remarkable;  the 
puzzle  was,  how  could  he  do  it  now?  Out 
of  all  the  wreck  of  his  small  memory,  why 
was  this  song,  the  meaning  of  which  he  had 
never  understood,  the  sole  survivor?  Was 
it  that  his  affection  for  Mr.  Pennroyal  had 
kept  it  alive?  So  might  a  sentimentalist 
have  concluded ;  but  the  doctor  was  a  man 
of  sense.  Was  it  that  the  boy  was  sham 
ming?  Impossible  on  all  accounts.  But 
then,  what  was  it? 

The  doctor  had  by  this  time  worked  him 
self  up  to  believe  that  the  solution  of  this 
problem  would  help  largely  toward  the 
clearing  up  of  the  whole  mystery.  So  he 
took  notes,  and  continued  to  observe  and  to 
consider. 

He  found,  in  the  first  place,  that  the 
song-singing  took  place  under  exactly  the 
same  circumstances  as  before  the  fit,  and  at 
no  other  time  or  place. 

Hereupon  he  devised  experiments  to  dis 
cover  whether  Archibald  was  conscious  that 
54 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

he  was  singing,  or  whether  it  was  an  act 
performed  mechanically,  while  the  mind 
was  otherwise  engaged.  After  the  child 
was  in  bed  he  quietly  arranged  a  lamp  so 
as  to  cast  a  circular  space  of  light  upon  the 
ceiling  above  the  bed,  the  rest  of  the  room 
being  left  in  shadow.  Not  a  word  of  any 
song  was  heard  that  night ;  and  the  test 
was  tried  twice  more  during  the  week,  with 
a  like  result.  At  another  time  he  got  the 
Honorable  Richard  to  come  into  a  room  ad 
joining  the  nursery  and  sing  the  song  so 
that  Archibald  might  hear  it.  Archibald 
heard  it,  but  gave  no  sign  of  being  affected 
thereby.  He  was  then  brought  into  Mr. 
Richard's  presence;  it  was  the  first  time 
they  had  met  since  the  change.  Now,  if 
ever,  was  an  opportunity  for  the  imperish 
able  quality  of  the  affections  to  be  vindi 
cated.  But  no  such  vindication  occurred. 
On  the  contrary,  after  having  stared  his 
uncle  almost  out  of  countenance  for  some 
minutes,  he  turned  from  him  with  a  marked 
55 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

expression  of  disapproval,  and  could  never 
afterward  be  induced  voluntarily  to  go 
near  him.  The  affection  had  become  an 
antipathy. 

"No,  madam;  set  your  mind  at  rest," 
said  the  bluff  doctor  to  Lady  Malmaison 
over  a  cup  of  tea  that  evening.  "  The 
child's  no  changeling;  but  he's  changed1 — 
and  changed  for  the  better,  too,  by  Gad ! 
He  can  tell  a  bad  egg  from  a  good  one 
now,"  continued  the  doctor  with  a  signifi 
cant  chuckle,  the  significance  of  which, 
however,  Lady  Malmaison  perhaps  failed  to 
perceive.  But  the  fact  was,  the  Honorable 
Richard  Pennroyal  had  never  been  an  es 
pecial  favorite  with  Dr.  Rollinson. 

The  next  day  was  a  new  excitement. 
Archibald  had  walked,  and  that,  too,  as 
well  as  the  best-grown  boy  of  seven  that 
you  would  want  to  see. 

"Aye,  and  where  did  he  walk  to?"  de 
manded  the  doctor. 

It  was  explained  that  it  was  at  the  time 
56 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

for  nursing  him,  and  he  was  sitting  in  his 
little  chair  at  one  end  of  the  nursery,  when 
Maggie  had  entered  at  the  other.  As  soon 
as  he  clapped  eyes  on  her  he  had  set  up  his 
usual  impatient  outcries;  but  Maggie,  in 
stead  of  going  directly  to  him,  had  stopped 
to  exchange  a  few  words  with  the  head 
nurse,  unfastening  the  front  of  her  dress 
the  while,  however,  so  that  Master  Archi 
bald's  impatience  was  carried  to  the  point 
of  intolerance  by  the  glimpse  thus  afforded 
of  the  good  things  in  store  for  him.  And 
then,  before  you  had  time  to  think,  he  had 
got  up  from  his  chair  and  trotted  across 
the  floor,  bellowing  all  the  time,  and  had 
tugged  at  Maggie's  dress. 

"Bellowing  all  the  time,  eh?"  said  the 
doctor. 

"  And  walking  all  the  same  like  he  was 
ten  year  old,  sir ;  and  it  did  give  us  all  a 
turn.  And  if  you  please,  sir,  what  do  you 
say  to  that  ?  " 

"What  do  I  say  to  that?  Why,  that  it's 
57 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

just  what  I  should  have  expected — that's 
what  I  say!"  replied  Dr.  Rollinson,  who 
had  apparently  begun  to  divine  some  clue 
to  the  grand  mystery.  But  he  vouchsafed 
no  explanations  as  yet. 

Archibald  did  not  repeat  the  walking 
miracle,  altho,  within  the  space  of  a  few 
weeks  only,  he  passed  through  the  regular 
gradations  of  crawling,  tottering,  and  tod 
dling  to  normal  pedestrianism  of  the  most 
active  kind.  His  progress  in  other  accom 
plishments  was  almost  parallel  with  this. 
From  inarticulate  gabble  he  trained  his 
tongue  to  definite  speech ;  his  vocabulary 
expanded  with  astonishing  rapidity,  and, 
contrary  to  his  previous  habit,  he  made  in 
cessant  use  of  it.  He  was  now  as  remark 
able  for  loquacity  as  formerly  for  the  op 
posite  characteristic ;  and  his  keenness  of 
observation  and  retentive  memory  were  a 
theme  of  general  admiration.  In  a  word, 
he  used  his  five  senses  to  ten  times  better 
effect  than  had  ever  been  expected  of  him 
58 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

in  the  old  days;  and  no  one  who  had  not 
seen  him  for  a  year  from  the  time  of  his  fit 
would  have  recognized  him  as  the  same 
child.  He  was  not  only  making  up  for  lost 
time — he  was  incomparably  outstripping  his 
earlier  self;  he  seemed  to  have  emerged 
from  a  mental  and  physical  cocoon — to 
have  cast  aside  an  incrustation  of  deterrent 
clumsiness,  and  to  be  hastening  onward 
with  the  airy  ease  and  accuracy  of  perfect 
self-possession.  At  the  end  of  a  year  he 
was  to  all  intents  and  purposes  ten  years 
old ;  and  what  was  most  remarkable  about 
this  swift  advance  lay  in  the  fact  that  a 
year  had  seen  the  whole  of  it.  Tho  he 
had  been  eight  years  in  the  world,  the  first 
seven  had  furnished  none  of  the  mental  or 
moral  material  for  the  last :  it  stood  alone 
and  disconnectedly.  Of  those  seven  years 
it  is  certain  that  he  retained  not  the  small 
est  recollection  ;  they  were  to  him  as  if  they 
had  never  been.  The  only  thing  they  did 
provide  him  with  was  a  well-fed  and  sound 
59 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

body ;  in  other  respects  Archibald  was  posi 
tively  new.  He  had  to  make  the  acquain 
tance  of  his  family  and  friends  over  again ; 
but  it  was  done  with  modifications.  In 
other  cases  besides  that  of  his  uncle  it  was 
observed  that  he  felt  antipathies  where 
formerly  he  loved,  and  vice  versa. 

A  minor  instance,  but  interesting  as 
must  be  all  evidence  in  a  case  so  strange 
as  this,  is  that  of  the  brindled  cat  that 
was  buried  in  the  garden.  Archibald  was 
brought  to  the  grave  which  he  had  so 
pathetically  haunted  before  his  metamor 
phosis,  not  many  weeks  after  the  metamor 
phosis  occurred  ;  and  every  means  was  used 
to  revive  in  him  some  recollection  of  the 
bereavement.  They  even  went  so  far  as  to 
uncover  poor  pussy's  remains.  .  .  .  Archi 
bald  was  first  unconscious  and  indifferent, 
then  curious,  finally  disgusted.  His  feel 
ings  were  not  otherwise  touched.  All  as 
sociations  connected  with  this  whilom  pet 

of  his,  grief  for  whose  loss  was  supposed  to 
60 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

have  been  the  impelling  cause  of  the  fit  it 
self,  were  as  utterly  expunged  from  his 
mind  as  if  they  had  never  existed  there. 
Moreover,  aversion  from  all  cats  was  from 
this  time  forth  so  marked  in  him  as  almost 
to  amount  to  horror;  while  dogs,  whose 
presence  had  been  wont  to  fill  him  with  dis 
may,  were  now  his  favorite  companions.  It 
was  the  same  in  other  things;  the  boy 
formed  independent  opinions  and  prejudices 
in  all  the  relations  of  life — independent, 
that  is,  of  his  past.  His  temper,  too,  was 
changed;  no  longer  timid,  appealing,  and 
docile,  it  was  now  determined,  enterprising, 
and  bold.  It  was  manifest  even  thus  early 
that  here  was  a  character  fitted  to  make  its 
way  in  the  world. 

"  No,  I  protest,  doctor,  I  can  never  be 
lieve  it's  the  same  child,"  said  Lady  Mal- 
maison  with  a  sigh.  "That  noisy,  self- 
willed  boy  is  never  my  quiet,  affectionate 
little  Archie.  And  yesterday  he  beat  his 

brother  Edward,   that    is    two  years    older 
61 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

than  he.  Heigho!  Pray,  dear  doctor,  what 
is  your  opinion?  " 

"My  opinion,  Lady  Malmaison,  is  that 
women  will  never  be  content,"  answered 
the  bluff  old  physician.  "  I  can  remember 
the  time  when  you  thought  your  quiet  little 
Archie  was  a  nincompoop — and  quite  right 
too.  And  now  because  a  monstrous  piece 
of  good  luck  has  made  a  Crichton  of  him, 
you  begin  to  regret  the  nincompoop!  It 
ain't  logical  " — and  the  doctor  took  snuff. 

"  But  who  ever  heard  of  a  child  changing 
his  whole  nature  all  in  a  moment?  "  persist 
ed  Lady  Malmaison. 

"  Why,  isn't  all  in  a  moment  better  than 
inch  by  inch?  The  thing  is  no  such 
mighty  matter  as  some  folks  try  to  make  it 
out.  The  boy  went  to  sleep  as  soon  as  he 
was  born,  and  has  but  just  waked  up — 
that's  my  notion  about  it.  So  now,  instead 
of  starting  the  way  most  of  us  do,  at  the 
point  of  helplessness,  he  begins  life  with  a 
body  full  of  seven  years'  pith  and  faculties 
62 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

sharp  set  as  a  new  watch.  Till  now  he  has 
but  dreamed;  now  he's  going  to  exist,  with 
so  much  the  more  extra  impetus.  He  don't 
recollect  what  he's  been  dreaming; — why 
should  he?  " 

"  But  he  did  recollect  some  things,  doc 
tor;  that  song.  .  .  .  And  then,  his  walking 
across  the  room!" 

"  Purely  physical — purely  automatic,"  re 
plied  the  doctor,  tapping  his  snuff-box,  and 
pleased  with  Lady  Malmaison's  awe  at  the 
strange  word.  "  If  he  had  stopped  to  think 
what  he  was  doing  he  couldn't  have  done  it. 
The  body,  I  tell  you,  grows  under  all  cir 
cumstances — as  much  when  you're  asleep  as 
when  you're  awake;  and  the  body  has  a 
memory  of  its  own  distinct  from  the  men 
tal  memory.  Have  you  never  hummed  a 
song  when  you  were  doing  your  embroidery, 
and  thinking  about — about  Lady  Snaffle's 
elopement  with  the  captain?  " 

"Oh,  doctor!" 

"Yes;  and  if  I'd  come  in  at  the  moment 
63 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

and  asked  you  what  you  were  singing,  could 
you  have  told  me?  Of  course  you  couldn't! 
You  could  have  told  me  all  about  the  elope 
ment.  Well,  then,  that's  clear  now,  ain't 
it?" 

"Yes,"  said  Lady  Malmaison ;  meaning, 
it  must  be  supposed,  "as  clear  as  mud." 
Dr.  Rollinson  chuckled  to  himself,  and  they 
continued  their  game  of  piquet. 


64 


III. 

POSSIBLY  the  reader,  tho  understanding 
the  force  of  the  doctor's  illustration  bet 
ter  than  good  stupid  Lady  Malmaison  could 
do,  is  still  of  opinion  that  that  eminent 
practitioner's  exposition  of  the  real  nucleus 
of  the  mystery  might  have  been  more  ex 
plicit.  It  is  all  very  well  to  say  that  the 
boy  was  asleep  for  seven  years  and  then 
woke  up ;  but  what  does  such  a  statement 
mean?  Are  such  prolonged  slumbers  an 
ordinary  occurrence?  And  if  so,  might  not 
the  slumberer,  after  a  longer  or  shorter  in 
terval  of  wakefulness,  fall  asleep  again?  It 
is  to  be  feared  that  the  old  physician  was 
not  quite  so  well  satisfied  in  his  secret  mind 
as  he  pretended  to  be,  and  that  his  learned 
dissertation  upon  automatic  action  was  little 
better  than  a  device  to  avoid  being  pressed 
5  65 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

upon  the  real  point  at  issue.  But  it  is  al 
ways  a  delicate  matter  to  fathom  the  depth 
of  a  medical  man's  sagaciousness. 

Mention  has  already  been  made  of  little 
Kate  Battledown,  the  effect  of  whose  so 
ciety  on  Archibald  had  been  so  strangely 
ungenial.  A  year  or  two  after  his  "awa 
kening  "  the  little  maiden  was  again  thrown 
in  his  way,  and  this  time  with  very  differ 
ent  results.  There  is  extant  among  the 
family  papers  a  letter  containing  a  very 
pretty  account  of  the  relations  which  were 
soon  established  between  these  small  per 
sonages.  They  seem  to  have  taken  to  one 
another  at  once,  and  exercised  over  each 
other  a  mutual  fascination.  Archibald, 
keen  and  domineering  with  his  brother  and 
sisters — and,  so  far  as  his  power  went,  with 
everybody  else — was  as  sweet  as  milk  to 
his  childish  enchantress;  and  no  doubt  his 
manners,  if  not  his  general  character, 
greatly  benefited  by  her  companionship. 

There   is    a    picture   of    the    two   children 
66 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

painted  by  Sir  Thomas   Lawrence  and  now 
hanging  in  the  present  Dr.  Rollinson's  par 


lor  (where,  doubtless,  thousands  of  his  pa 
tients  have  beheld  it,   ignorant  of  its  his 
tory),  which  is  perhaps  as  beautiful  an  ex- 
67 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

ample  of  English  youth  and  maidenhood  at 
eleven  and  nine  years  of  age  as  could  be 
found  in  the  three  kingdoms.  The  boy, 
black-eyed  and  black-haired,  seems  to  step 
forward  daringly,  with  his  glance  fixed 
defiantly  upon  the  spectator ;  but  his  left 
hand,  extended  behind  him,  clasps  that  of 
little  Kate  with  a  protecting  gesture ;  and 
her  great  brown  eyes  rest  on  his  face  with 
a  look  half  of  apprehension,  half  of  admir 
ing  confidence.  There  is  a  second  portrait 
of  her,  taken  ten  years  later;  but  of  Archi 
bald  no  other  authentic  likeness  exists. 
Report  affirms,  however,  that  in  1823  and 
thereabout  he  was  esteemed  one  of  the 
handsomest  young  fellows  of  his  day. 

The  devotion  of  the  two  to  each  other 
grew  with  their  growth.  vShe,  even  at  that 
early  age,  must  have  given  occasional  fore 
tastes  of  the  wayward,  impulsive,  and  yet 
calculating  character  that  was  developed  in 
her  later  life ;  but  there  can  be  little  doubt 

that  she  felt  a  genuine  attachment  to  Archi- 
68 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

bald ;  and  he  laid  himself  at  her  feet  with 
a  chivalric  single-heartedness  more  charac 
teristic  of  the  fifteenth  century  than  of 
the  early  nineteenth.  Indeed,  his  jealous 
guardianship  of  her  excited  not  a  little 
amusement  among  his  seniors ;  and  it  is 
related  that  in  his  twelfth  year  he  actually 
commissioned  Colonel  Battledown  to  carry 
3.  formal  "  message  "  on  his  behalf  to  the 
Honorable  Richard  Pennroyal ;  the  latter's 
offense  consisting  in  his  having  taken  Miss 
Battledown  on  his  knee  and  kissed  her. 
The  matter  was,  however,  happily  arranged 
on  the  Hon.  gentleman's  expressing  his  re 
gret  for  his  indiscretion,  and  the  Colonel 
and  Sir  Clarence  becoming  answerable  for 
his  good  behavior  in  future.  But  the  chil 
dren's  preference  for  each  other  now  began 
to  suggest  other  thoughts  than  those  of 
mere  passing  entertainment  to  the  paternal 
minds.  There  seemed  to  be  no  good  reason 
why  they  should  not  ultimately  make  a 
match  of  it.  It  was  true  that  Kate  might 
69 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

well  expect  to  find  a  more  brilliant  mate 
than  the  second  son  of  a  baronet;  but,  per 
sonal  feeling  and  the  friendship  of  the  fam 
ilies  aside,  she  might  do  much  worse  than 
with  Archibald.  The  second  son  of  Sir 
Clarence  stood  a  fair  chance  of  hereafter 
making  a  favorable  entry  into  politics ;  and 
as  for  fortune,  his  aunt  on  the  mother's 
side,  a  Miss  Tremunt,  of  Cornwall,  an  old 
maid  without  nearer  relatives  than  her 
nephew,  was  in  a  fair  way  to  bequeath  him 
seventy  thousand  pounds.  And  further 
more  (this  was  an  aspect  of  the  case  which 
Colonel  Battledown  probably  kept  to  him 
self)  ,  it  was  not  beyond  the  bounds  of  pos 
sibility  that  Archibald  might  finally  inherit 
Malmaison  in  spite  of  the  accident  of  his 
birth.  Edward  Malmaison  had  always  been 
a  delicate  child,  and  years  were  not  mak 
ing  him  stronger.  He  was  very  studious, 
and  disinclined  to  those  active  exercises  in 
which  his  brother  was  already  beginning  to 

excel;    his  eyes  were  weak  and  his  cheeks 

70 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

pale;  and  in  short,  unless  his  constitu 
tion  should  presently  undergo  a  favorable 
change,  the  chances  were  fairly  against  his 
surviving  Archibald,  to  say  the  least  of  it. 
"Archie  thrashed  him  at  fisticuffs,"  said 
the  old  man  of  war  to  himself,  "and  why 
shouldn't  he  get  the  better  of  him  in  other 
ways  as  well?  Of  course  we  wish  no  harm 
to  happen  to  poor  Edward,  who  is  a  good 
little  snipe  enough;  but  one  must  conduct 
one's  campaign  with  an  eye  to  what  may 
happen,  as  well  as  to  what  is." 

So  this  matrimonial  arrangement,  with 
out  being  definitely  resolved  upon  (except 
possibly  in  the  hearts  of  the  two  young  per 
sons  principally  concerned),  was  allowed  to 
remain  in  a  state  of  favorable  suspense. 
Kate  and  Archibald  saw  one  another  as 
much  as  was  good  for  them — altho,  by 
way  of  keeping  up  the  chivalric  conditions, 
they  used  to  pretend  that  all  manner  of 
portentous  obstacles  intervened  between 
them  and  the  consummation  of  their  de- 
71 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

sires;  and  exhausted  their  ingenuity  in  the 
devising  of  secret  meetings,  of  elopements 
across  the  garden  wall,  and  of  heartrend 
ing  separations,  when  imaginary  heartless 
parents  tore  them  ruthlessly  from  one  an 
other's  arms.  In  a  letter  written  by  Sir 
Clarence  to  Dr.  Rollinson,  under  date  De 
cember  27,  1811,  the  jolly  Baronet  says: 
"  Our  Xmas  festivities  were  for  a  time 
interupted  by  another  Romantic  Event. 
Catherine,  onely  daughter  of  Colonel  Bat- 
tledown,  eloped  with  Mr.  Archibald  Mal- 
maison  of  Malmaison.  The  Fugitives  es 
caped  by  the  pantry  dore,  and  before  they 
could  be  overtaken,  had  been  maid  man  and 
wife  by  the  under  Gardner  in  the  tool  house 
in  the  corner  of  the  yard.  An  application 
will  be  made  to  Parlement  to  dissolve  the 
marriage  untill  the  parties  are  out  of  the 
Nursrie."  By  this  it  may  appear  that  vSir 
Clarence  had  even  more  humor  than  or 
thography. 

It  was  a  few  weeks  after  this   event   that 
72 


ARCHIBALD  MALMAISON. 

poor  old  Aunt  Jane  left  the  world  by  way 
of  the  ornamental  fish-pond.  The  pond  in 
question  lay  on  the  boundary-line  between 
the  Malmaison  estate  and  that  of  the  Penn- 
royals ;  and  the  ornamentation  consisted  of 
two  flights  of  steps  leading  down  to  the 
water,  and  of  half  a  dozen  willows  whose 
twisted  trunks  bent  over  the  surface.  Al- 
tho  of  no  great  area,  this  pond  was  start- 
lingly  deep,  and  the  bottom,  when  you  got 
to  it,  was  of  the  softest  and  most  unfath 
omable  mud.  Had  not  Aunt  Jane  been 
seen  just  as  she  was  sinking  for  the  third 
time,  therefore,  the  chances  are  that  she 
would  never  have  been  seen  till  doomsday; 
there  was  room,  and  to  spare,  for  all  the 
Malmaison  line  in  the  slimy  depths  of  that 
pool.  After  the  catastrophe,  Mr.  Penn- 
royal  caused  a  handsome  iron  railing  to  be 
erected  round  the  scene  of  it.  This  act 
caused  it  to  be  said  that  he  might  have  done 
it  before.  Did  he  expect  his  future  wives 
to  go  the  road  of  the  first  one  ?  And  was  it 
73 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

not  criminal  negligence  in  him  to  have  suf 
fered  her  to  escape  from  her  attendants? 
How  could  such  a  thing  have  happened? 
Did  Mr.  Pennroyal  consider  that  people 
might  say  that  the  death  of  his  wife  was  no 
loss  to  him,  but  the  contrary?  because  that 
fifty  thousand  pounds  of  hers,  of  which 
during  her  lifetime  he  could  touch  only  the 
interest,  became  at  her  decease  his  abso 
lute  property,  to  do  with  as  he  liked. 
Under  such  circumstances,  a  gentleman 
careful  of  his  reputation  should  have  guard 
ed  her  as  the  apple  of  his  eye.  It  was  cer 
tainly  very  odd  that  a  poor,  frail,  crazy  crea 
ture  should  have  been  able  to  elude  all 
pursuit,  and  then  have  gone  straight  to  the 
pool — in  midwinter,  too — and  deliberately 
jumped  in.  And  there  she  might  have  lain, 
and  no  one  the  wiser,  had  not  young  Archi 
bald  Malmaison  happened  to  see  her  and 
given  the  alarm.  If  he  had  been  a  few  min 
utes  earlier,  who  can  tell  but  he  might  have 
seen  something — that  nobody  suspected ! 
74 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

All  this  random  talk  proved  nothing 
more  than  that  the  Honorable  Mr.  Penn- 
royal  was  not  a  favorite  with  his  neighbors; 
and  that  was  a  fact  of  which  no  proof  was 
needed.  Some  men  who  are  good  fellows 
enough  at  bottom,  and  even  capable  of 
inspiring  genuine  attachment  in  particular 
cases,  never  become  generally  popular. 
When  Mr.  Pennroyal  was  accused  of  stingi 
ness  it  was  not  considered  that  he  had  a 
great  many  liabilities  to  meet,  and  perhaps 
some  big  debts  to  pay  off.  When  it  was 
said  that  he  was  unsocial  and  cynical  it 
was  forgotten  that  these  very  remarks  were 
enough  to  make  him  so.  And  when  he  was 
blamed  for  neglecting  his  wife,  and  profit 
ing  by  her  demise — well,  now,  how  is  a 
gentleman  to  pay  attentions  to  an  idiot,  or 
to  be  inconsolable  when  Providence  gives 
him  fifty  thousand  down  in  exchange  for 
her?  Besides,  he  gave  her  an  imposing 
funeral,  and  put  himself  and  all  his  house 
hold  into  strict  mourning.  As  for  the  iron 
75 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

railing,  it  might  be  looked  upon  as  a  sort  of 
monument  to  the  departed,  in  which  prac 
tical  usefulness  and  a  becoming  sentiment 
were  ingeniously  combined. 

The  incident  had  its  effect  upon  Archi 
bald — in  rather  a  curious  fashion.  He  was, 
as  has  been  intimated,  the  one  to  give  the 
alarm.  He  had  been  passing  that  way,  it 
seemed,  and  had  caught  sight  of  a  strug 
gling  something  in  the  water ;  and  his  shouts 
had  speedily  drawn  the  gamekeeper  and  a 
couple  of  villagers  to  the  spot.  The  boy 
had  watched  the  recapture  of  the  lifeless 
body  in  solemn  silence,  a  red  flush  of  color 
in  either  cheek.  He  had  been  rather  fond 
of  Aunt  Jane  after  her  insanity  became  con 
firmed,  and  he  was  the  only  human  being 
whom  the  poor  woman  had  seemed  to  recog 
nize,  and  in  whose  company  she  felt  some 
dull  gleams  of  pleasure.  He  now  shed  no 
tears,  seeming  more  angry  than  grieved, 
and  continued  to  maintain  a  marked  taci 
turnity  for  several  days;  and  concerning 
76' 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

the  catastrophe  itself,  he  could  never  be  in 
duced  to  speak  at  all.  The  power  of  keep 
ing  his  own  counsel  had  always  character 
ized  him ;  in  the  present  instance  he  was  as 
gloomily  reserved  as  tho  he  had  buried 
a  secret  of  state  in  his  breast.  Toward  the 
widower  his  manner  became,  from  hostile, 
almost  insolent.  It  was  a  curious  spectacle 
to  see  the  lad,  scarcely  out  of  the  nursery, 
either  ignoring  his  tall  relative  as  if  the 
latter  were  a  caitiff  unworthy  the  notice  of 
a  gentleman,  or  else  staring  him  haughtily 
in  the  face ; — and  staring  him  down,  too !  for 
it  was  remarked  that  the  Honorable  Richard 
exhibited  an  admirable  forbearance,  not  to 
say  meekness,  toward  his  rude  little  kins 
man.  And  yet,  before  this  time,  he  had  oc 
casionally  given  the  boy  harsh  words  and 
looks.  ...  It  must  have  been  that  his  be 
reavement  had  softened  his  heart. 

However,  time  went  on,  and  by  degrees 
the  poignancy  of  the  widower's  grief  was 
blunted,  and  Aunt  Jane's  name  was  seldom 
77 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

mentioned  by  any  one ;  after  all,  she  had  not 
done  herself,  or  anybody  connected  with 
her,  much  credit.  And  other  changes  oc 
curred.  The  stout  old  Colonel  found  it 
incumbent  upon  him  to  join  Sir  Arthur 
Wellesley  in  the  Peninsula ;  and  Kate  be 
gan  to  take  the  lead  in  household  affairs 
(her  mother  was  a  good  deal  of  an  invalid), 
and  stayed  more  at  home  than  she  used  to 
do,  and  consequently  did  not  see  so  much 
of  Archibald.  She  gave  him  to  understand 
that  it  was  more  genteel  for  him  to  come 
and  call  on  her,  as  Mr.  Pennroyal  and  other 
gentlemen  did.  The  young  lady  was  al 
ready  coming  into  her  heritage  of  beauty, 
and  possessed  more  than  her  share  of  maid 
enly  dignity,  considering  that  she  was 
barely  thirteen.  And  when,  at  that  men 
tion  of  Pennroyal,  Archibald  said — 

"  Indeed,   Kate,   you  must   not   class   me 
with   him,   or  with   any  man.      Remember 
that    we    were    married    two    Christmases 
ago — "  she  answered : 
78 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

"  You  foolish  boy,  that  was  not  a  real 
marriage !  A  real  marriage  is  done  in  a 
church,  by  a  parson,  and  I  wear  a  white 
veil." 

"But  ours  was  an  elopement,"  objected 
Archibald,  disturbed. 

"  An  elopement  without  a  carriage-and- 
four  and  a  blacksmith?  What  an  idea!  " 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  you  are  not  my 
wife,  Kate?"  demanded  the  boy,  turning 
pale. 

"  Neither  yours  nor  anybody's,  Mr. 
Archibald." 

"Kate!"  he  broke  out  passionately,  the 
blood  leaping  to  his  face,  "  take  care  you 
never  let  yourself  be  anybody  else's  wife 
than  mine!  And  I  don't  see  what  differ 
ence  a  blacksmith  or  a  veil  makes.  And  if 
you  do,  they  shall  die !  I  know  how  to  use 
a  sword,  and  a  pistol  too!  " 

"Oh,  Archie,  how  wicked  you  are!  And 
how  cruel  to  me,  when  you  know  that  I  can 
never  love  any  man  but  you,  tho  cruel 
79 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

fate  may  separate  us  for  a  season !  "  The 
young  lady  was  quoting  from  "  Evelina,"  as 
Archibald  well  knew ;  but  they  had  got  so 
much  in  the  habit  of  applying  the  phraseol 
ogy  of  that  work  to  the  requirements  of 
their  own  private  romance  that  it  came 
without  their  thinking  of  it. 

"  But  say  that  you  will  be  my  own  at 
last!"  cries  Archibald,  carrying  on  the 
scene  in  all  seriousness. 

"  Nay,  my  lord,  'tis  ungenerous  thus  to 
press  me! — Oh,  no,  you  must  not  do  so, 
Archie !  The  book  says  that  Lord  Orville 
only  kisses  her  hand— 

"I  am  not  Lord  Orville,  and  I  will  kiss 
you  where  I  like;  and  I  don't  care  for  the 
book  when  I  feel  as  I  do  now.  I  only  care 
for  you !  " 

"Bravo,  young  gentleman!  that's  the 
way  to  talk  to  "em!"  cried  Dr.  Rollinson, 
who  had  overheard  the  whole  of  this  con 
versation,  and  who  now  appeared  with  his 

broad  figure,  his  gouty  legs,  and  his  gruff 
80 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

chuckle.  "  Books  are  very  well  for  make- 
believe,  but  when  it  comes  to  downright 
earnest,  use  a  tongue  of  your  own — eh?" 
and  he  clapped  the  boy  kindly  on  the 
shoulder.  "Yes,  yes,  she'll  marry  you  fast 
enough  when  she  sees  you  making  eyes  at 
some  other  pretty  girl!  Don't  tell  me! 
There's  plenty  of  'em,  go  where  you  will; 
and  when  you  start  on  the  grand  tour,  as 
you'll  be  doing  one  of  these  days,  you'll 
see  for  yourself!"  Such  were  the  cynical 
blasphemies  which  this  man  was  not 
ashamed  to  instil  into  the  ear  of  his  young 
friend.  And  then  he  led  him  away  some 
where,  still  chuckling,  and  left  Miss  Battle- 
down  to  digest  her  slight  the  best  way  she 
could.  The  doctor  fancied  he  knew  a  thing 
or  two  about  the  sex.  If  so,  he  was  very 
knowing ! 


81 


IV. 

MALMAISON  HOUSE  was  partly  destroyed 
by  fire  many  years  ago,*  and  two  years 
later  the  portion  still  standing  was  taken 
down  to  make  way  for  the  proposed  branch 
of  the  London  and  South-Coast  Railway. 
The  branch  is  still  unbuilt,  but  only  some 
heaps  of  grass-grown  rubbish  remain  to 
mark  the  site  of  the  venerable  edifice. 
But  at  the  period  of  which  I  am  now  wri 
ting  it  was  an  imposing  pile  of  gray-stone, 
standing  on  a  slight  elevation,  with  a  slo 
ping  lawn  in  front  and  many  large  trees 
surrounding  it.  The  center  and  the  right 
wing  were  of  Elizabethan  date ;  the  left 
wing  was  constructed  by  Sir  Christopher 
Wren,  or  by  some  architect  of  his  school, 
and,  tho  outwardly  corresponding  with  the 

*In  July,  1867. 
82 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

rest  of  the  building,  was  interiorly  both 
more  commodious  and  less  massive.  The 
walls  of  the  old  part  were  in  some  places 
over  four  feet  in  thickness,  and  even  the 
partitions  between  the  rooms  were  two  feet 
of  solid  masonry.  Many  of  the  rooms  were 
hung  with  tapestry;  and  in  taking  down 
the  house  several  traces  were  discovered  of 
secret  passages  hollowed  out  within  the 
walls  themselves,  and  communicating  by 
means  of  sliding  panels  from  room  to  room. 
The  plan  of  the  building  comprised  two 
floors  and  an  attic ;  but  the  attic  was  not 
coextensive  with  the  lower  areas,  and  there 
was  often  a  difference  of  level  between  the 
apartments  on  the  latter  floors  of  from  one 
to  four  steps.  An  irregular  corridor  on  the 
first  floor,  badly  lighted,  and  in  some  places 
perfectly  dark,  extended  from  the  center 
into  the  right  wing,  affording  entrance  to 
the  rooms  front  and  back. 

At  the  end  of  the  right  wing  was  situated 
the  east  chamber,  of  which  mention  has  al- 
83 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

ready  been  made.  Originally  the  only  ac 
cess  to  it  was  by  way  of  a  larger  chamber 
adjoining,  which,  again,  could  only  be  en 
tered  through  the  dark  corridor.  This  was 
the  condition  of  things  at  the  time  of  the 
famous  magic  disappearance  of  Sir  Charles 
Malmaison,  in  1745.  But  at  the  beginning 
of  the  present  century  a  door  was  cut 
through  the  outside  wall,  whence  a  covered 
flight  of  stone  steps  led  down  into  an  en 
closed  courtyard.  The  room  was  thus  ren 
dered  independent,  so  to  speak,  of  the  rest 
of  the  house.  The  occupant  might  lock 
the  door  communicating  with  the  adjoining 
chamber,  and  go  and  come  by  the  other  as 
he  pleased.  As  for  the  courtyard,  part  of  it 
had  formerly  been  used  as  a  stable,  with 
stalls  for  three  horses;  these  were  now 
transferred  to  the  other  end  of  the  mansion, 
tho  the  stable,  of  course,  remained;  and  it 
was  necessary  to  go  through  the  stable  in 
order  to  get  to  the  covered  flight  of  steps. 
It  may  be  remembered  that  Archibald, 
84 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

in  what  we  may  term  his  soporific  period, 
had  manifested  a  strong,  altho  entirely  ir 
rational  repugnance  to  this  east  chamber. 
Perhaps  he  had  been  conscious  of  presences 
there  which  were  imperceptible  to  normal 
and  healthy  senses !  Be  that  as  it  may,  he 
got  bravely  over  his  folly  afterward,  and  in 
his  twelfth  year  (his  third,  Sir  Clarence 
would  have  called  it)  he  permanently  took 
up  his  quarters  there,  and  would  admit  no 
"  women"  except  as  a  special  favor.  In 
those  days,  when  people  were  still  more  or 
less  prone  to  superstition,  it  was  not  every 
boy  who  would  have  enjoyed  the  sensation 
of  spending  his  nights  in  so  isolated  a  situa 
tion  ;  for  the  right  wing  was  almost  entirely 
unoccupied  on  this  floor.  But  Archibald 
appears  to  have  been  singularly  free  from 
fear,  whether  of  the  natural  or  of  the  super 
natural.  He  collected  together  all  his  boy 
ish  pennies — his  gun,  his  sword,  his  fishing- 
rods,  and  his  riding-whips — and  arranged 
them  about  the  walls.  He  swept  down  the 
85 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

cobwebs  from  windows  and  ceiling;  turned 
out  of  doors  a  lot  of  miscellaneous  lumber 
that  had  insensibly  collected  there  during 
•the  last  half  century;  lugged  in  a  few  com 
fortable,  broad-bottomed  chairs  and  stanch 
old  tables;  set  up  a  book-shelf  containing 
Walton's  "Complete  Angler,"  "Dialogues 
of  Devils,"  "Arabian  Nights,"  Miss  Bur- 
ney's  "  Evelina,"  and  other  equally  fashion 
able  and  ingenious  works;  kindled  a  great 
fire  on  the  broad  hearth;  and  upon  the 
whole,  rendered  the  aspect  of  things  more 
comfortable  than  would  have  been  antici 
pated.  The  room  itself  was  long,  narrow, 
and  comparatively  low ;  the  latticed  win 
dows  were  sunk  several  feet  into  the  mas 
sive  walls;  lengths  of  brownish-green  and 
yellow  tapestry,  none  the  fresher  for  its 
two  centuries  and  more  of  existence,  still 
protested  against  the  modern  heresy  of 
wallpaper;  and  in  a  panel-frame  over  the 
fireplace  was  seen  the  portrait,  by  Sir  God 
frey  Kneller,  of  the  Jacobite  baronet.  It 
86 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

was  a  half-length,  in  officer's  uniform ;  one 
hand  holding  the  hilt  of  a  sword  against 
the  breast,  while  the  forefinger  of  the  oth 
er  hand  pointed  diagonally  downward,  as 
much  as  to  say,  "  I  vanished  in  that  direc 
tion  !  "  The  fireplace,  it  should  be  noted, 
was  built  on  the  side  of  the  room  opposite 
to  the  windows;  that  is  to  say,  in  one  of 
the  partition  walls.  And  what  was  on  the 
other  side  of  this  partition  ?  Not  the  large 
chamber  opening  into  the  corridor;  that 
lay  at  right  angles  to  the  east  chamber, 
along  the  southern  front  of  the  wing.  Not 
the  corridor  either,  tho  it  ran  for  some 
distance  parallel  to  the  east  chamber  and 
had  a  door  on  the  east  side.  But  this  door 
led  into  a  great  dark  closet,  as  big  as  an 
ordinary  room,  and  used  as  a  receptacle  for 
rubbish.  Was  it  the  dark  closet,  then,  that 
adjoined  the  east  chamber  on  the  other  side 
of  the  partition?  No,  once  more.  Had  a 
window  been  opened  through  the  closet 
wall  it  would  have  looked,  not  into  Archi- 
87 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

bald's  room,  but  into  a  narrow  blind  court 
or  well,  entirely  enclosed  between  four 
stone  walls,  and  of  no  apparent  use  save  as 
a  somewhat  clumsy  architectural  expedient. 
There  was  no  present  way  of  getting  into 
this  well,  or  even  of  looking  into  it,  unless 
one  had  been  at  the  pains  to  mount  on  the 
roof  of  the  house  and  peer  down.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  its  existence  was  only  made 
known  by  the  reports  of  an  occasional  work 
man  engaged  in  renewing  the  tiles  or 
mending  a  decayed  chimney.  An  accurate 
survey  of  the  building  would,  of  course, 
have  revealed  it  at  once ;  but  nothing  of  the 
kind  had  been  thought  of  within  the  mem 
ory  of  man.  Such  a  survey  would  also 
have  revealed  what  no  one  in  the  least  sus 
pected,  but  which  was,  nevertheless,  a  fact 
of  startling  significance:  namely,  that  the 
blind  court  was  at  least  fifteen  feet  shorter, 
and  twenty-five  feet  narrower,  than  it  ought 
to  have  been! 

Archibald  was  as  far  from  suspecting  it 
88 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

as  anybody;  indeed,  he  most  likely  never 
troubled  his  head  about  builders'  plans  in 
his  life.  But  he  thought  a  great  deal  of  his 
great-grandfather's  portrait;  and  since  it 
was  so  placed  as  to  be  in  view  of  the  most 
comfortable  chair  before  the  fire,  he  spent 
many  hours  of  every  week  gazing  at  it. 
What  was  Sir  Charles  pointing  at  with  that 
left  forefinger?  And  what  meant  that  pe 
culiarly  intent  and  slightly  frowning  glance 
which  the  painted  eyes  forever  bent  upon 
his  own?  Archibald  probably  had  a  few  of 
Mrs.  Radcliffe's  romances  along  with  the 
other  valuable  books  on  his  shelves,  and  he 
may  have  cherished  a  notion  that  a  treas 
ure,  or  an  important  secret  of  some  sort, 
was  concealed  in  the  vicinity.  Following 
down  the  direction  of  the  pointing  finger, 
he  found  that  it  intersected  the  floor  at  a 
spot  about  five  feet  to  the  right  of  the  side 
of  the  fireplace.  The  floor  of  the  chamber 
was  of  solid  oak  planking,  blackened  by 

age ;  and  it  appeared  to  be  no  less  solid  at 
89 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

this  point  than  at  any  other.  Nevertheless 
he  thought  it  would  be  good  fun,  and  at  all 
events  would  do  no  harm,  to  cut  a  hole 
there  and  see  what  was  underneath.  Ac 
cordingly  he  quietly  procured  a  saw  and  a 
hammer  and  chisel,  and  one  day,  when  the 
family  were  away  from  home,  he  locked 
himself  into  his  room  and  went  to  work. 
The  job  was  not  an  easy  one,  the  tough  oak 
wood  being  almost  enough  to  turn  the  edge 
of  his  chisel,  and  there  being  no  purchase 
at  all  for  the  saw.  After  quarter  of  an 
hour's  chipping  and  hammering,  with  very 
little  result,  he  paused  to  rest.  The  board 
at  which  he  had  been  working,  and  which 
met  the  wall  at  right  angles,  was  very 
short — not  more  than  eighteen  inches  long : 
indeed,  being  inserted  merely  to  fill  up  the 
gap  caused  by  a  deficiency  in  length  of  the 
plank  of  which  it  was  the  continuation.  Be 
tween  the  two  adjoining  ends  was  a  crack 
of  some  width,  and  into  that  crack  did 

Archibald  idly  stick  his  chisel.     It  seemed 
90 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

to  him  that  the  crack  widened,  so  that  he 
was  able  to  press  the  blade  of  the  chisel 
down  to  its  thickest  part.  He  now  worked 
it  eagerly  backward  and  forward,  and  to 
his  delight  the  crack  rapidly  widened  still 
farther;  in  fact,  the  short  board  was  sliding 
back  underneath  the  wainscot.  A  small 
oblong  cavity  was  thus  revealed,  into  which 
the  young  discoverer  glowered  with  beating 
heart  and  vast  anticipations. 

What  he  found  could  scarcely  be  said  to 
do  those  anticipations  justice ;  it  was  neither 
a  casket  of  precious  stones  nor  a  document 
establishing  the  family  right  of  ownership 
of  the  whole  county  of  Sussex.  It  was 
nothing  more  than  a  tarnished  rod  of  sil 
ver,  about  nine  inches  in  length,  and 
twisted  into  an  irregular  sort  of  corkscrew 
shape.  One  end  terminated  in  a  broad, 
flat  button ;  the  other  in  a  blunted  point. 
There  was  nothing  else  in  the  hole — noth 
ing  to  show  what  the  rod  was  meant  for,  or 
why  it  was  so  ingeniously  hidden  there. 
91 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 


And  yet,  reflected  Archibald,  could  it  have 
been  so  hidden,  and  its  place  of  conceal 
ment  so  mysteriously  indicated,  without 
any  ulterior  purpose  whatever?  It  was 
incredible!  Why,  the  whole  portrait  was 
evidently  painted  with  no  other  object 
than  that  of  indicating  the  rod's  where 
abouts.  Either,  then,  there  was  or  had 
been  something  else  in  the  cavity  in  ad 
dition  to  the  rod,  or  the  rod  was  intend 
ed  to  be  used  in  some  way  still  unex 
plained.  So  much  was  beyond  question. 

Thus  cogitated 
Archibald  —  that 
is  to  say,  thus  he 
might  have  cogi 
tated,  for  there 
is  no  direct  evi 
dence  of  what 
passed  through 
his  mind.  And, 
in  the  first  place, 

he  made   an  ex- 
92 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

haustive  examination  of  the  cavity,  and 
convinced  himself  not  only  that  there  was 
nothing  else  except  dust  to  be  got  out 
of  it,  but  also  that  it  opened  into  no  other 
cavity  which  might  prove  more  fruitful. 
His  next  step  was  to  study  the  silver  rod, 
in  the  hope  that  scrutiny  or  inspiration 
might  suggest  to  him  what  it  was  good  for. 
His  pains  were  rewarded  by  finding  on  the 
flat  head  the  nearly  obliterated  figures  3 
and  5,  inscribed  one  above  the  other,  in  the 
manner  of  a  vulgar  fraction,  thus,  f  ;  and 
by  the  conviction  that  the  spiral  conforma 
tion  of  the  rod  was  not  the  result  of  acci 
dent,  as  he  had  at  first  supposed,  but  had 
been  communicated  to  it  intentionally,  for 
some  purpose  unknown.  These  conclusions 
naturally  stimulated  his  curiosity  more  than 
ever ;  but  nothing  came  of  it.  The  boy  was 
a  clever  boy,  but  he  was  not  a  detective 
trained  in  this  species  of  research,  and  the 
problem  was  beyond  his  ingenuity.  He 
made  every  application  of  the  figures  3  and 
93 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

5  that  imagination  could  suggest :  he  took 
them  in  feet,  in  inches,  in  yards ;  he  added 
them  together,  and  he  subtracted  one  from 
the  other; — all  in  vain.  The  only  thing  he 
did  not  do  was  to  take  any  one  else  into  his 
confidence ;  he  said  not  a  word  about  the 
affair  even  to  Kate;  being  resolved  that  if 
there  were  a  mystery  it  should  be  revealed, 
at  least  in  the  first  instance,  to  no  one  else 
besides  himself.  At  length,  after  several 
days  spent  in  fruitless  experiments  and  loss 
of  temper,  he  returned  the  rod  to  its  hiding- 
place,  with  the  determination  to  give  him 
self  a  rest  for  a  while,  and  see  what  time 
and  accident  would  do  for  him.  This  plan, 
tho  undoubtedly  prudent,  seemed  likely  to 
effect  no  more  than  the  others;  and  over 
a  year  passed  away  without  the  rod's  being 
again  disturbed.  By  degrees  his  thoughts 
ceased  to  dwell  so  persistently  upon  the  un 
solved  puzzle,  and  other  interests  took  pos 
session  of  his  mind.  The  tragedy  of  his 
aunt's  death,  his  love  for  Kate,  his  studies, 
94 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

his  prospects — a  hundred  things  gave  him 
occupation,  until  the  silver  rod  was  half 
forgotten. 

In  the  latter  part  of  1813,  however,  he 
accidentally  made  a  rather  remarkable  dis 
covery. 


95 


V. 

HE  had  for  the  first  time  been  out  hunt 
ing  with  his  father  and  the  neighboring 
country  gentlemen  in  the  autumn  of  this 
year,  and  it  appears  that  on  two  occasions 
he  had  the  brush  awarded  .to  him.  At  his 
request  the  heads  of  the  two  foxes  were 
mounted  for  him,  and  he  proposed  to  put 
them  up  on  either  side  his  fireplace. 

The  wall  above  and  for  a  few  inches  to 
the  right  and  left  of  the  mantelpiece  was 
bare  of  tapestry ;  the  first-named  place  be 
ing  occupied  by  the  portrait,  while  the  sides 
were  four  feet  up  the  oaken  wainscot  which 
surrounded  the  whole  room  behind  the  tap 
estry,  and  from  thence  to  the  ceiling,  plas 
ter.  The  mantelpiece  and  fireplace  were 
of  a  dark,  slaty  stone  and  of  brick,  respec 
tively. 

96 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

Archibald  fixed  upon  what  he  considered 
the  most  effective  positions  for  his  heads — 
just  above  the  level  of  the  wainscot,  and 
near  enough  to  the  mantelpiece  not  to  be 
interfered  with  by  the  tapestry.  He  nailed 
up  one  of  them  on  the  left-hand  side,  the 
nails  penetrating  with  just  sufficient  resist 
ance  in  the  firm  plaster;  and  then,  measur 
ing  carefully  to  the  corresponding  point  on 
the  right-hand  side,  he  proceeded  tc  affix 
the  other  head  there.  But  the  nail,  on  this 
occasion,  could  not  be  made  to  go  in;  and 
on  his  attempting  to  force  it  with  a  heavier 
stroke  of  the  hammer  it  bent  beneath  the 
blow,  and  the  hammer  came  sharply  into 
contact  with  the  white  surface  of  the  wall, 
producing  a  clinking  sound  as  from  an  im 
pact  on  metal. 

A  brief  investigation  now  revealed  the 
fact  that  a  circular  disk  of  iron,  about  three 
inches  in  diameter  and  painted  white  to 
match  the  plaster,  was  here  let  into  the 
wall.  What  could  be  the  object  of  it? 
7  97 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

With  a  fresh  nail  the  boy  began  to  scratch 
off  the  paint  from  the  surface  of  the  disk 
in  order  to  determine  whether  it  were  ac 
tually  iron,  or  some  otner  metal ;  in  so  doing 
a  small,  movable  lid,  like  the  screen  of  a 
keyhole,  was  pushed  aside,  disclosing  a  lit 
tle  round  aperture  underneath.  Archibald 
pushed  the  nail  into  it,  thereby  informing 
himself  that  the  hole  went  straight  into  the 
wall  for  a  distance  greater  than  the  length 
of  the  nail ;  but  how  much  greater,  and 
what  was  at  the  end  of  it,  he  could  only 
conjecture. 

We  must  imagine  him  now  standing  up 
on  a  chair  with  the  nail  in  his  hand,  casting 
about  in  his  mind  for  some  means  of  pro 
bing  this  mysterious  and  unexpected  hole  to 
the  bottom.  At  this  juncture  he  happens 
to  glance  upward  and  meets  the  intent  re 
gard  of  his  pictured  ancestor,  who  seems 
to  have  been  silently  watching  him  all  this 
time,  and  only  to  be  prevented  by  unavoid 
able  circumstances  from  speaking  out  and 
98 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 


telling  him  what  to  do  next.  And  there  is 
that  constant  forefinger  pointing — at  what? 
At  the  cavity  in  the  floor,  of  course;  but 
not  of  that  alone ;  for  if  you  observe,  this 
same  new-found  hole  in  the  wall  is  a  third 
point  in  the  straight  line  between  the  end 
of  the  forefinger  and  the  hiding-place  of 
the  silver  rod ;  fur 
thermore,  the  hole  is, 
as  nearly  as  can  be 
estimated  without  ac 
tual  measurement, 
three  feet  distant 
from  the  forefinger 
and  five  feet  from  the 
rod.  The  problem  of 
three  above  and  five 
below  has  solved  itself 
in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye,  and  it  only  re 
mains  to  act  accord 
ingly! 

Archibald      sprang 
99 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

to  the  floor  in  no  small  excitement;  but 
the  first  thing  he  did  was  to  sec  that 
both  his  doors  were  securely  fastened. 
Then  he  advanced  upon  the  mystery 
with  heightened  color  and  beating  heart, 
his  imagination  reveling  in  the  wildest 
forecasts  of  what  might  be  in  store ;  and 
anon  turning  him  cold  with  sickening 
apprehension  lest  it  should  prove  to  be 
nothing  after  all!  But,  no!  something 
there  must  be— some  buried  secret,  now  to 
live  once  more  for  him  and  for  him  only: 
the  secret  whereof  dim  legends  had  come 
down  through  the  obscurity  of  two  hundred 
years;  the  secret,  too,  of  old  Sir  Charles  in 
the  frame  yonder,  the  man  of  magic  repute. 
What  could  it  be?  Some  talisman — some 
volume  of  the  Black  Art,  perhaps — -which 
would  enable  him  to  vanish  at  will  into  thin 
air,  and  to  travel  with  the  speed  of  a  wish 
from  place  to  place — to  become  a  veritable 
enchanter,  endowed  with  all  supernatural 
powers.  With  hands  slightly  tremulous 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

from  eagerness  he  pushed  baek  the  bit  of 
plank  and  drew  forth  the  silver  rod ;  then 
mounted  on  the  chair  and  applied  it  to  the 
hole,  which  it  fitted  accurately.  Before 
pushing-  it  home  he  paused  a  moment. 

In  all  the  stories  he  had  read,  the  posses 
sors  of  magic  secrets  had  acquired  the  same 
only  in  exchange  for  something  supposed 
to  be  equally  valuable — namely,  their  own 
souls.  It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  Arch 
ibald  would  be  able  to  modify  the  terms  of 
the  bargain  in  his  own  case;  was  he,  then, 
prepared  to  pay  the  price?  Every  human 
being,  probably,  is  called  upon  to  give  a 
more  or  less  direct  answer  to  this  question 
at  some  epoch  of  their  lives ;  and  were  it 
not  for  curiosity  and  skepticism,  and  an  un 
willingness  to  profit  by  the  experience  of 
others,  very  likely  that  answer  might  be 
more  often  favorable  to  virtue  than  it  actu 
ally  is.  Archibald  did  not  hesitate  long. 
Whether  he  decided  to  disbelieve  in  any 
danger;  whether  he  resolved  to  brave  it 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

whatever  it  might  be ;  or  whether,  having 
got  thus  far,  he  had  not  suffieient  control 
over  his  inclinations  to  resist  going  further 
— at  all  events  he  drew  in  his  breath,  set 
his  boyish  lips,  and  drove  the  silver  rod 
into  the  aperture  with  right  good  will. 

It  turned  slowly  as  it  entered,  the  curve 
of  its  spiral  evidently  following  the  corre 
sponding  windings  of  the  hole.  Inward  it 
twisted  like  a  snake,  until  only  some  two 
inches  still  projected.  As  the  searcher  af 
ter  forbidden  mysteries  continued  to  press, 
something  seemed  to  give  way  within  ;  and 
at  the  same  instant  an  odd,  shuffling  sound 
caused  him  to  glance  sharply  over  his  left 
shoulder. 

What  was  the  matter  with  the  mantel 
piece  ?  The  whole  of  the  right  jamb  seemed 
to  have  started  forward  nearly  a  foot,  while 
the  left  jamb  had  retired  by  a  correspond 
ing  distance  into  the  wall;  the  hearth, 
with  the  fire  burning  upon  it,  remained 

meanwhile    undisturbed.      At    first    Archi- 
102 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON 

bald  imagined  that  the  mantelpiece  was 
going  to  fall,  perhaps  bringing  down  the 
whole  partition  with  it;  but  when  he  had 
got  over  the  first  shock  of  surprise  suffi 
ciently  to  make  an  examination,  he  found 
that  the  entire  structure  of  massive  gray- 
stone  was  swung  upon  a  concealed  pivot, 
round  which  it  turned  independently  of  the 
brickwork  of  the  fireplace.  The  silver  rod 
had  released  the  spring  by  which  the  mech 
anism  was  held  in  check,  and  an  unsus 
pected  doorway  was  thus  revealed,  opening 
into  the  very  substance  of  the  apparently 
solid  wall.  On  getting  down  from  his  chair 
he  had  no  difficulty  in  pulling  forward  the 
jamb  far  enough  to  satisfy  himself  that 
there  was  a  cavity  of  unknown  extent  be 
hind.  And  from  out  of  this  cavity  breathed 
a  strange,  dry  air,  like  the  sigh  of  a 
mummy.  As  for  the  darkness  in  there, 
it  was  almost  as  substantial  as  that  of  the 
central  chamber  in  the  great  pyramid. 

Archibald  may  well  have  had  some  mis- 
103 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

givings,  for  he  was  only  a  boy,  and  this  hap 
pened  more  than  eighty-five  years  ago,  when 
ghosts  and  goblins  had  not  come  to  be  con 
sidered  such  indefensible  humbugs  as  they 
are  now.  Nevertheless  he  was  of  a  singu 
larly  intrepid  temperament,  and  besides, 
he  had  passed  the  turning-point  in  this 
adventure  a  few  minutes  ago.  Nothing, 
therefore,  would  have  turned  him  back 
now.  Come  what  might  of  it,  he  would  see 
this  business  to  an  end. 

It  was,  however,  impossible  to  see  any 
thing  without  a  light;  it  would  be  neces 
sary  to  fetch  one  of  the  rush  candles  from 
the  table  in  the  corridor.  It  was  a  matter 
of  half  a  minute  for  the  boy  to  go  and  re 
turn  ;  then  he  edged  himself  through  the 
opening,  and  was  standing  in  a  kind  of 
vaulted  tunnel,  directly  behind  the  fire 
place,  the  warmth  of  which  he  could  feel 
when  he  laid  his  hand  on  the  bricks  on  that 
side.  The  tunnel,  which  extended  along 

the  interior  of  the  wall  toward  the  left,  was 
104 


An  unsuspected  doorway  was  thus  revealed. 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

about  six  feet  in  height  by  two  and  a  half 
in  width.  Archibald  could  walk  in  it  quite 
easily. 

But,  in  the  first  place,  he  scrutinized  the 
mechanism  of  the  revolving  mantelpiece. 
It  was  an  extremely  ingenious  and  yet  sim 
ple  device,  and  so  accurately  fitted  in  all 
its  parts  that,  after  so  many  years,  they 
still  worked  together  almost  as  smoothly  as 
when  new.  After  Archibald  had  poured  a 
little  of  his  gun-oil  into  the  joints  of  the 
hinges  and  along  the  grooves,  he  found  that 
the  heavy  stone  structure  would  open  and 
close  as  noiselessly  and  easily  as  his  own 
jaws.  It  could  be  opened  from  the  inside 
by  using  the  silver  rod  in  a  hole  corre 
sponding  to  that  on  the  outside  ;  and  having 
practised  this  opening  and  slmtting  until 
he  was  satisfied  that  he  was  thoroughly 
master  of  the  process,  he  put  the  rod  in  his 
pocket,  pulled  the  jamb  gently  together 
behind  him,  and,  candle  in  hand,  set  forth 
along  the  tunnel. 

I05 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

After  walking  ten  paces  he  came  face-up 
against  a  wall  lying  at  right  angles  to  the 
direction  in  which  he  had  been  moving. 
Peering  cautiously  round  the  corner,  he  saw 
at  the  end  of  a  shallow  embrasure  a  pon 
derous  door  of  dark  wood,  braced  with  iron, 
standing  partly  open,  with  a  key  in  the 
key-hole,  as  if  some  one  had  just  come 
out  and  in  his  haste  had  forgotten  to  shut 
and  lock  the  door  behind  him.  Archibald 
now  slowly  opened  it  to  its  full  extent;  it 
creaked  as  it  moved,  and  the  draught  of  air 
made  his  candle  flicker,  and  caused  strange 
shadows  to  dance  for  a  moment  in  the  un 
explored  void  beyond.  In  another  breath 
Archibald  had  crossed  the  threshold  and 
arrived  at  the  goal  of  his  pilgrimage. 

At  first  he  could  see  very  little;  but  there 
could  be  no  doubt  that  he  was  in  a  room 
which  seemed  to  be  of  large  extent,  and 
for  the  existence  of  which  he  could  by  no 
means  account.  The  reader,  who  has  been 

better  informed,  will  already  have  assigned 
1 06 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

it  its  true  place  in  that  unexplained  region 
mentioned  some  pages  back,  between  the 
blind  court  and  the  east  chamber.  Gro 
ping  his  way  cautiously  about,  Archibald 
presently  discerned  a  burnished  sconce  af 
fixed  to  the  wall,  in  which  having  placed 
his  candle,  the  light  was  reflected  over  the 
room,  so  that  the  objects  it  contained  stood 
dimly  forth.  It  was  a  room  of  fair  ex 
tent  and  considerable  height,  and  wras  ap 
parently  furnished  in  a  style  of  quaint 
and  somber  magnificence  such  as  no  other 
apartment  in  Malmaison  could  show.  The 
arched  ceiling  was  supported  by  vast  oaken 
beams ;  the  floor  was  inlaid  with  polished 
marbles.  The  walls,  instead  of  being  hung 
with  tapestry,  were  painted  in  distemper 
with  life-size  figure  subjects,  representing, 
as  far  as  the  boy  could  make  out,  some 
weird  incantation  scene.  At  one  end  of 
the  room  stood  a  heavy  cabinet,  the  shelves 
of  which  were  piled  with  gold  and  silver 

plate,  richly  chased,  and  evidently  of  great 
107 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

value.  Here,  in  fact,  seemed  to  have  been 
deposited  many  of  the  precious  heirlooms  of 
the  family  which  had  disappeared  during 
the  Jacobite  rebellions,  and  were  supposed 
to  have  been  lost.  The  cabinet  was  made 
of  ebony  inlaid  with  ivory,  as  was  also  a 
broad  round  table  in  the  center  of  the  room. 
In  a  niche  opposite  the  cabinet  gleamed  a 
complete  suit  of  sixteenth-century  armor; 
and  so  dry  was  the  atmosphere  of  the  apart 
ment  that  scarce  a  spot  of  rust  appeared 
upon  the  polished  surface,  which,  however, 
like  every  other  object  in  the  room,  was 
overlaid  \vith  fine  dust.  A  bed,  with  em 
broidered  coverlet  and  heavy  silken  cur 
tains,  stood  in  a  deep  recess  to  the  left  of 
the  cabinet.  Upon  the  table  lay  a  number 
of  papers  and  parchments,  some  tied  up  in 
bundles,  others  lying  about  in  disorder. 
One  was  spread  open,  with  a  pen  thrown 
down  upon  it  and  an  antique  ink-horn 
standing  near;  and  upon  a  stand  beside  the 

bed  was    a   gold-enameled    snuff-box,   wdth 
108 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

its  lid   up,    and  containing,    doubtless,    the 
dusty  remnant  of  some  George  II.  rappee. 

At  all  these  things  Archibald  gazed  in 
thoughtful  silence.  This  room  had  been 
left,  at  a  moment's  warning,  generations 
ago;  since  then  this  strange,  dry  air  had 
been  breathed  by  no  human  nostrils,  these 
various  objects  had  remained  untouched  and 
motionless;  nothing  but  time  had  dwelt  in 
the  chamber;  and  yet  what  a  change,  subtle 
but  mighty,  had  been  wrought !  Mere  still 
ness — mere  absence  of  life — was  an  appall 
ing  thing,  the  boy  thought.  And  why  had 
this  secret  been  suffered  to  pass  into  ob 
livion?  And  why  had  fate  selected  him  to 
discover  it?  And  now,  what  use  would  he 
make  of  it?  "At  all  events,"  said  the  boy 
to  himself,  "it  has  become  my  secret,  and 
shall  remain  mine ;  and  no  fear  but  the 
occasion  will  come  when  I  shall  know  what 
use  to  make  of  it."  He  felt  that  meanwhile 
it  would  give  him  power,  security,  wealth 

also,  if  he  should  ever  have  occasion  for  it ; 
109 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 


and  with  a  curious  sentiment  of  pride  he 
saw  himself  thus  mystically  designated 
as  the  true  heir  of  Malmaison — the  only 
one  of  his  age  and  generation  who  had 
been  permitted  to  stand  on  an  equality 
with  those  historic  and  legendary  ances 
tors  to  whom  the  secret  of  this  chamber 
had  given  the  name  and  fame  of  wizards. 
Henceforth  Archibald  was  as  much  a  wiz 
ard  as  they. 

Or  might 
there  after  all 
be  a  power 
in  necromancy 
that  he  yet 
dreamed  not 
of?  Was  it 
possible  that 
even  now 
those  old  en 
chanters  held 
their  meetings 
here,  and 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

would  question  liis    right  to  force  his  way 
among  them? 

As  this  thought  passed  through  the  boy's 
mind,  he  was  moving  slowly  forward,  his 
eyes  glancing  now  here,  now  there,  when 
all  at  once  the  roots  of  his  hair  were  stirred 
with  an  emotion  which,  if  not  fear,  was  cer 
tainly  far  removed  from  tranquillity.  From 
the  darkest  corner  of  the  room  he  had 
seen  a  human  figure  silently  and  stealth 
ily  creeping  toward  him.  Now,  as  he 
fixed  his  eyes  upon  it,  it  stopped  and 
seemed  to  return  his  stare.  His  senses 
did  not  deceive  him;  there  it  stood,  dis 
tinctly  outlined,  tho  its  features  were  in 
distinguishable  by  reason  of  the  shadow 
that  fell  upon  them.  But  what  living 
thing — living  with  mortal  life,  at  least — 
could  exist  in  a  room  that  had  been  closed 
for  sixty  years  ? 

Now  certainly  this  Archibald,  who  had 
not  yet  completed  his  fourteenth  year,  pos 
sessed  a  valiant  soul.  That  all  his  flesh 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

yearned  for  instant  flight  does  not  admit  of 
a  doubt;  and  had  he  fled,  this  record  would 
never  have  been  written.  Fly,  however, 
he  would  not,  but  would  step  forward  rather, 
and  be  resolved  what  manner  of  goblin 
confronted  him.  Forward,  therefore,  he 
stepped;  and  behold,  the  goblin  was  but  the 
reflection  of  himself  in  a  tall  mirror,  which 
the  obscurity  and  his  own  agitation  had 
prevented  him  from  discerning.  The  re 
vulsion  of  feeling  thus  occasioned  was  so 
strong  that  for  a  moment  all  strength  for 
sook  the  boy's  knees;  he  stumbled  and  fell, 
and  his  forehead  struck  the  corner  of  the 
ebony  cabinet.  He  was  on  his  feet  again 
in  a  moment ;  but  his  forehead  was  bleeding, 
and  he  felt  strangely  giddy.  The  candle, 
too,  was  getting  near  its  end ;  it  was  time 
to  bring  this  first  visit  to  a  close.  He  took 
the  candle  from  the  sconce,  passed  out 
through  the  door,  traversed  the  tunnel,  and 
thrust  the  silver  key  into  the  keyhole.  The 
stone  door  yielded  before  him ;  he  dropped 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

what  was  left  of  the  candle,  and  slipped 
through  the  opening  into  broad  daylight. 
The  first  object  his  dazzled  eyes  rested  upon 
was  the  figure  of  Miss  Kate  Battledown.  In 
returning  from  his  visit  to  the  corridor  he 
must  have  forgotten  to  lock  the  room  door 
after  him.  She  was  standing  with  her  back 
toward  him,  looking  out  of  the  window,  and 
was  apparently  making  signs  to  some  one 
outside. 

Noiselessly  Archibald  pushed  the  mantel 
piece  back  into  place ;  thanks  to  the  oiling 
he  had  given  the  hinges,  no  sound  betrayed 
the  movement.  The  next  moment  Kate 
turned  round,  and  seeing  him,  started  and 
cried  "  Oh  !  " 

"Good-morning,  Mistress  Kate,"  said 
Archibald. 

''•Archibald!" 

"  Well?" 

"You  were  not  here  a  moment  ago!  " 

"Well?" 

"Then  how  did  you  get  here?  ' 
8  113 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

Archibald  made  a  gesture  toward  the  door 
leading  to  the  covered  stairway. 

"  No — no !  "  said  Kate ;  "  it  is  locked,  and 
the  key  is  on  this  side."  She  had  been 
coming  toward  him,  but  now  stopped  and 
regarded  him  with  terror  in  her  looks. 

"  What  is  the  matter,  Kate?  " 

"You  are  all  over  blood,  Archibald! 
What  has  happened?  Are  you  .  .  .  oh, 
what  are  you?  "  She  was  ready  to  believe 
him  a  ghost. 

"What  am  I?"  repeated  the  boy  slug 
gishly.  That  odd  giddiness  was  increas 
ing,  and  he  scarcely  knew  whether  he  were 
asleep  or  awake.  Who  was  he,  indeed? 
What  had  happened?  Who  was  that  young 
woman  in  front  of  him?  What  .  .  . 

"  Archibald !  Archie !  Speak  to  me ! 
Why  do  you  look  so  strangely?  " 

"  Me  not  know  oo!  "  said  Archie,  and  be 
gan  to  cry. 

Mistress  Kate  turned  pale,  and  began  to 

back  toward  the  door. 
114 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

"  Me  want  my  Kittle  !  "  blubbered  Archie. 

Kate  stopped.      "  You  want  me?  " 

"Me  want  my  'ittle  Kittle — my  'ittle 
b'indled  Kittle!  Dey  put  my  Kittle  in  de 
hole  in  de  darden !  Me  want  her  to  p'ay 
wiz!"  And  with  this,  and  with  the  tears 
streaming  down  his  cheeks,  poor  Archie 
toddled  forward  with  the  uncertain  step  and 
outstretched  arms  of  a  little  child.  But 
Kate  had  already  gained  the  door,  and  was 
running  screaming  across  the  next  room, 
and  so  down  the  long  corridor. 

Poor  Archie  toddled  after,  his  baby  heart 
filled  with  mourning  for  the  brindled  cat 
that  had  been  buried  in  the  back  garden 
seven  years  before.  Seven  years  ? — or  was 
it  only  yesterday? 


IJ5 


VI. 

Miss  KATE  BATTLEDOWX'S  screams,  as 
she  ran  down  the  corridor,  must  speedily 
have  summoned  the  household ;  and  then 
the  dreadful  news  was  told — not  losing  any 
thing  of  its  horror,  we  may  be  sure,  in  the 
recital ;  and  then  appeared  poor  Archie  in 
confirmation.  The  greatest  confusion  and 
bewilderment  prevailed.  No  one  compre 
hended  anything.  It  was  not  known  what 
had  happened.  What  was  this  story  about 
Archie's  having  suddenly  appeared  where 
before  there  had  been  only  empty  air — just 
as  his  great-grandfather,  Sir  Charles,  had 
done  before  him?  Kate,  to  whom  we  may 
pardon  a  little  incorrectness  or  exaggeration 
under  the  circumstances,  solemnly  assever 
ated  that  she  had  been  looking  straight  at 

the  center  of  the  room,  and  that  nobody  was 
116 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

there ;  and  that  all  at  once  "  Archie  grew 
together  out  of  nothing !  "  Such  is  the  ver 
sion  of  her  words  given  by  Lady  Malmaison 
in  a  letter  to  her  sister,  Miss  Tremount,  of 
Cornwall,  soon  after  the  occurrence.  Miss 
Tremount,  it  may  be  remembered,  had  in 
timated  )7ears  ago  her  intention  of  making 
Archibald  her  heir;  and  Lady  Malmaison's 
letter  is  an  amusing  and  rather  ingenious 
attempt  to  convey  the  information  about 
poor  Archie  in  such  a  way  as  not  to  fright 
en  off  this  inheritance.  Doctor  Rollinson, 
she  wrote,  had  seen  dear  Archie,  and  had 
said  that  what  had  happened  was  only 
what  might  have  been  expected ;  and  that 
the  dear  child's  health  would  certainly  not 
suffer,  but,  on  the  contrary,  be  strength 
ened,  and  his  life  prolonged.  For  that 
there  could  be  no  doubt  that  poor  Archie 
had  been  laboring  under  an  almost  unnatu 
ral  excitement,  or  tension  of  the  nerves, 
during  the  last  few  years,  which  had  caused 
Lady  Malmaison  the  greatest  anxiety ;  and 
117 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

she  was  truly  thankful,  for  her  part,  that 
things  had  come  out  no  worse  than  they 
had.  She  could  feel  secure,  now,  that  her 
darling  Archie  would  live  to  be  a  quiet, 
good,  sensible  English  gentleman,  fitted 
to  discharge  efficiently  and  conscientiously 
an  English  gentleman's  duties,  whether  it 
were  to  manage  an  estate,  or — or  in  fact 
whatever  it  might  be.  And  then  came  the 
little  story  about  the  mysterious  apparition 
of  Archie  out  of  vacancy,  which  Lady  Mal- 
maison  treated  humorously;  tho  in  her 
own  heart  she  was  very  much  scared  at  it, 
and  was  moreover  privately  convinced  that 
Archie  was,  and  would  remain,  very  little 
better  than  an  idiot  all  his  life  long.  Now 
.it  is  well  known  that  English  country  gen 
tlemen  are  never  idiotic. 

What  was  the  elder  Dr.  Rollinson's  real 
opinion  about  Archie's  relapse?  The  only 
direct  evidence  worth  having  on  this  point 
—his  own — is  unfortunately  not  forthcom 
ing,  and  we  are  obliged  to  depend  on  such 
118 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

inaccurate  or  interested  hearsay  as  has  just 
been  quoted  above.  It  seems  likely  that  he 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  stupidity  was 
the  boy's  normal  condition,  and  that  his 
seven  years  of  brilliance  had  been  something 
essentially  abnormal  and  temporary,  and 
important  only  from  a  pathological  point 
of  view.  Indeed,  there  was  nothing  in  the 
transmuted  Archibald's  condition  that  was 
susceptible  of  being  treated  as  a  disease, 
He  was  as  healthy  as  the  average  of  boys  of 
fourteen  (if  he  were  a  boy  of  fourteen,  and 
not  a  child  of  seven).  He  knew  nothing, 
and  had  retained  nothing,  of  his  other  life ; 
he  had  to  be  taught  his  letters — and  a  ter 
rible  job  that  was,  by  all  accounts;  he  oc 
casionally  expressed  a  desire  to  see  his 
nurse  Maggie — .who,  the  charitable  reader 
will  rejoice  to  hear,  had  been  honestly  mar 
ried  since  we  last  heard  of  her.  He  was 
greatly  puzzled  to  find  himself  so  much 
taller  than  when  he  last  knew  .himself;  and 
it  was  a  long  time  before  he  could  be  in- 
119 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

duced  to  recognize  his  own  reflection  in  the 
looking-glass.  Needless  to  say  that  every 
thing  connected  with  the  secret  chamber 
and  the  silver  rod  was  completely  erased 
from  his  mind ;  and  tho  he  had  been  found 
with  the  rod  in  his  hand,  he  could  not  tell 
what  it  was  or  where  he  got  it. 

In  this  connection,  however,  I  will  men 
tion  something  which,  if  it  be  true,  throws 
a  new  and  strange  light  upon  his  psycho 
logical  condition.  There  is  reason  to  believe 
that  he  visited  the  secret  chamber  in  a 
somnambulistic  state.  The  evidence  on 
which  this  supposition  is  founded  appears, 
at  this  distance  of  time,  rather  imperfect; 
but  it  is  certain  that  a  few  weeks  after  the 
boy's  entrance  upon  his  unintelligent  state, 
the  silver  rod  was  lost  sight  of;  and  it  is  al 
most  certain  that  during  the  time  of  its 
disappearance  it  was  lying  in  its  hidden 
receptacle  under  the  floor  beside  the  mantel 
piece.  But  in  that  case,  who  but  Archibald 
could  have  put  it  there?  and  when  could  he 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

have  put  it  there  save  in  his  sleep?  It  is 
known  that  he  was  a  somnambulist- during 
his  unenlightened  period,  though  never  in 
his  alternate  state ;  and  if  he,  as  a  somnam 
bulist,  remembered  the  hiding-place  of  the 
rod,  it  follows  that  he  must  also  have  re 
membered  the  rod's  use,  and  visited  the 
secret  chamber.  Thus  it  would  seem  that 
only  in  the  boy's  waking  hours  was  he  ob 
livious  and  stupid ;  in  his  dreams  he  truly 
lived  and  was  awake!  Here,  then,  is  a 
complication  of  absorbing  interest,  which 
I  will  leave  for  physicians  and  metaphysi 
cians  to  fight  out  between  themselves,  For 
my  part,  I  can  only  look  on  in  respectful 
bewilderment. 

But  we  must  leave  Archibald  for  the  pres 
ent,  and  occupy  our  minds  with  the  proceed 
ings  of  the  other  personages  of  this  drama. 
An  era  of  disaster  was  in  store  for  most  of 
them.  It  is  curious  to  note  how  the  proverb 
that  misfortunes  never  come  single  was  il 
lustrated  in  the  case  of  these  people.  Fate 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

seems  to  have  launched  its  thunderbolts  at 
them  all  at  once,  as  if  making  up  for  lost 
time;  or  like  a  playwright,  who  clears  his 
stage  of  all  secondary  and  superfluous  char 
acters,  and  leaves  a  free  field  wherein  the 
two  or  three  principal  people  may  meet  and 
work  out  their  destiny  unimpeded. 

Colonel  Battledown  fought  under  Welling 
ton  against  Soult  at  Orthez;  and  in  a  charge 
of  the  French  cavalry  the  gallant  officer  and 
genial  gentleman  was  cut  in  the  head  by  a 
saber-stroke  and  ridden  down ;  and  when 
picked  up  after  the  battle  he  was  dead.  He 
was  buried  on  the  spot:  the  practise  of 
sending  the  corpses  of  heroes  and  others 
careering  over  the  face  of  the  earth  in 
search  of  a  spot  of  loam  worthy  to  receive 
them  was  not  at  that  time  so  fashionable 
as  it  has  since  become.  But  the  news  of 
his  death  came  home,  and  put  his  friends 
in  mourning,  and  made  Mistress  Kate  the 
heiress  .of  a  great  property  at  the  age  of 
fourteen.  But  she  was  older  than  her  years, 

122 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

and  was  generally  considered  to  be  "  just 
the  sort  of  person  to  be  an  heiress,"  what 
ever  that  may  be.  I  suppose  she  was  ex 
ceedingly  handsome,  with  a  proper  sense  of 
her  importance,  and  a  capacity  of  keeping 
an  eye  upon  what  she  considered  her  inter 
ests.  At  the  same  time  many  actions  of 
hers  indicate  that  she  was  occasionally  liable 
to  ungovernable  impulses,  and  that  her 
temper  was  fitful  and  wayward.  Such  a 
woman  would  make  a  capital  heroine  for  a 
modern  novel ;  she  would  stand  a  lot  of 
analyzing. 

The  tender  relations  which  had  subsisted 
between  her  and  Archibald  were  perforce 
broken  off.  What  can  you  do  with  a  lover 
who  suddenly  ceases  to  have  the  most  dis 
tant  recollection  of  you,  who  does  not  be 
lieve  you  when  you  tell  him  your  name, 
and  whose  only  associations  with  that  name 
date  seven  years  back  and  are  disagreeable? 
Nobody  can  blame  Kate  for  giving  Archi 
bald  up;  she  would  have  been  more  than 
123 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

human  if  she  could  have  intrusted  her  heart 
to  the  keeping  of  a  half-witted  wizard, 
whose  mysterious  likeness  to,  or  connection 
with,  a  charming  young  gentleman  rendered 
him  only  the  more  undesirable.  Poor  Kate ! 
If  she  gave  her  heart  to  Archibald,  and  then 
Archibald  became  somebody  else,  what  shall 
we  say  became  of  her  heart?  Must  it  not 
have  been  irretrievably  lost,  and  shall  we 
be  surprised  if  we  hereafter  detect  in  her  a 
tendency  to  heartlessness? 

The  next  one  to  drop  was  Sir  Clarence 
Butt  Malmaison.  The  jolly  baronet  was 
never  the  same  man  after  the  relapse  of  his 
second  son,  whom  he  had  grown  to  love 
more  than  his  first-born,  and  to  whose  future 
he  had  looked  forward  with  much  ambitious 
anticipation.  He  iised  to  sit  for  hours  at  a 
time  sadly  watching  the  child's  sluggish 
gambols  about  the  nursery  floor;  ever  and 
anon  trying  to  arouse  in  his  darkened  mind 
some  sparks  of  the  former  brightness,  and, 
when  the  effort  failed,  sighing  heavily, 
124 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

sometimes  with  tears  trickling  down  his 
ruddy  old  cheeks.  If  Archibald  had  never 
passed  through  that  period  of  deceptive 
promise,  it  is  probable  that  he  would  have 
received  a  fair  amount  of  affection  as  he 
was,  and  he  wrould  at  all  events  not  have 
committed  the  unpardonable  offense  of  in 
spiring  hopes  which  were  not  destined  to  be 
fulfilled.  Sir  Clarence  felt  like  the  man  in 
the  fairy  tale  who  received  from  the  fairy  a 
purse  of  gold,  but  on  opening  the  purse  to 
handle  the  money  found  nothing  in  his 
grasp  but  a  bunch  of  yellow  autumn  leaves. 
The  heroic  end  of  his  friend  the  Colonel 
served  to  augment  the  baronet's  depression 
of  spirits ;  nor  was  his  gloom  lightened  by 
the  reflection  that  Kate's  inheritance  of 
the  estate  would  now  in  no  way  advantage 
Archibald.  So,  what  with  one  thing  and 
another,  it  must  be  confessed  that  Sir  Clar 
ence  ended  by  taking  too  much  wine  after 
dinner.  And  the  more  wine  he  drank,  the 
less  inclination  did  he  feel  to  keep  up  his 
I25 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

hardy  outdoor  habits  of  riding  and  shooting; 
and,  consequently,  the  more  moody  and 
plethoric  he  became.  At  length  he  nearly 
quarreled  with  Dr.  Rollinson  because  the 
latter  told  him  plainly  that  the  bottle  would 
be  his  coffin ;  and  a  few  days  later  he  did 
quarrel,  and  very  violently  too,  with  the 
Honorable  Richard  Pennroyal.  This  gentle 
man,  it  seems,  had  ridden  over  to  Malmaison 
and  stayed  to  dinner;  and  at  dessert  the 
conversation  got  round  to  the  present  mel 
ancholy  condition  of  local  affairs. 

"  Everything's  going  to  the  dogs!  "  cried 
poor  Sir  Clarence,  with  an  oath ;  "  and  no 

gentleman,  by !  ought  to  condescend  to 

exist." 

"Come,  Malmaison,"  said  Pennroyal, 
smiling  and  cracking  filberts,  "you're  going 
too  far.  Things  are  not  so  bad.  And  there 
are  compensations!  " 

"Compensations?  What  compensations? 
What  the  devil  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"Ha!  ha!     Well,  for  instance,  about  the 
126 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

poor  Colonel.  Of  course,  we're  all  dooced 
sorry  to  lose  the  Colonel — fine  old  chap,  and 
a  good  hand  at  piquet.  But  after  all,  he  had 
to  go  some  time;  and  then  what  happens? 
The  fair  Miss  Battledown  becomes  the  rich 
est  heiress  in  the  three  counties." 

"  Aye,  and  what's  the  compensation  in 
that?  What  good  does  her  being  an  heiress 
do  me?  Can  my  boy  marry  her?  Answer 
me  that!  " 

"  Well,  I  should  fancy  not;  but  somebody 
else  can." 

"Somebody  else?  Who?  I'd  like  to 
know !  "  bawled  Sir  Clarence.  "  Let  me 
see  the  scoundrel  who'll  dare  to  marry 
Kate  Battledown — let  me  see  him !  " 

"  I  hear  you  quite  plainly,  Malmaison ; 
and  I  wouldn't  exert  myself  so  much  if  I 
were  you — you  know  what  the  doctor  said. 
As  for  Miss  Battledown,  surely  she  has  a 
right  to  marry  whom  she  pleases — hasn't 
she?  " 

"  No,  she  has  not !  "  returned  the  baronet, 
127 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

getting  angrier  than  ever.  "  She  belongs  to 
my  Archibald  ;  and  if  any  scoundrel — 

"  Really,  you  are  intolerable,  Sir  Clar 
ence,"  interrupted  Pennroyal,  still  smiling, 
but  not  a  pleasant  smile.  "  A  man  whose 
temper  is  faulty  at  the  best  of  times  should 
be  more  careful  to  avoid  whatever  tends  to 
make  it  worse."  And  as  Pennroyal  said  this 
he  glanced  significantly  at  the  decanter — of 
which,  to  do  him  justice,  he  was  very  spar 
ing  himself. 

"  Pennroyal !  "  said  the  old  baronet,  draw 
ing  himself  up  with  a  good  deal  of  dignity, 
"  your  father  and  I  were  friends  before  you 
were  born,  and  you're  my  brother-in-law; 
but  if  you  were  not  sitting  at  my  table  I'd 
teach  you  better  manners  than  to  lecture 
your  elders.  I  said  I  should  like  to  see  the 
scoundrel  who  would  dare  to  marry  Kate 
Battledown — and — and  what  is  that  to  you?  " 

"  Well,  it's  just  this,"  returned  Pennroyal 
quietly;  "  I'm  going  to  marry  her  myself!  " 

Sir  Clarence   started  up   from  his   chair 
128 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

with  a  tremendous  oath — 
and  sat  down  again  He 
was  putting  a  terrible  re 
straint  upon  himself.  Not 
for  his  life  would  he  outrage  the  guest 
who  was  beneath  his  roof.  His  face  be 
came  dark  red,  and  the  veins  on  his 
forehead  and  in  his  neck  stood  out  and 
throbbed  visibly.  His  eyes  were  fixed  star- 
ingly  upon  the  impassable  visage  of  the 
Honorable  Richard,  and  he  drew  his  breath 
with  difficulty.  There  was  a  pause  of  some 
duration,  broken  only  by  this  stertorous 
breathing  and  by  the  deliberate  cracking 
of  the  guest's  filberts.  At  last,  with  a  tragic 
effort  of  courtesy  that  was  almost  grotesque, 
the  poor  gentleman  pushed  the  decanter 
toward  his  brother-in-law  and  deadly  enemy, 
accompanying 
the  act  by  a  rat- 
tling  sound  in 
the  throat, 
probably  in- 
9  I29 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

tended  as  an  invitation  to  help  himself. 
But  the  struggle  was  too  severe.  The 
next  moment  the  baronet's  eyes  rolled  wild 
ly,  a  gasping  noise  broke  from  him,  and  he 
fell  forward  with  his  head  on  the  table. 

Mr.  Pennroyal  promptly  arose  and  rang 
the  bell.  "Send  for  the  doctor  at  once,"  he 
said  to  the  servant  who  appeared.  "  Sir 
Clarence  has  overdrunk  himself  or  over 
eaten  himself,  I  fancy.  And  help  me  to 
put  him  on  the  sofa  and  loosen  his  neck 
cloth.  There — very  distressing!  Apply 
the  usual  remedies,  while  I  step  up-stairs 
and  speak  to  Lady  Malmaison." 

The  usual  remedies  availed  little,  and 
when  Dr.  Rollinson  arrived,  four  hours 
afterward,  it  was  already  evident  that  even 
he  could  be  of  no  use.  Sir  Clarence  never 
fully  regained  consciousness,  and  two  days 
later  he  ceased  to  breathe.  There  was  an 
inquest,  resulting  in  a  verdict  of  death  by 
apoplexy,  and  followed  by  a  handsome 

funeral.     The  widow  of  the  deceased,  who 
130 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

was  a  lady  of  easily  stirred  emotions  and 
limited  intellect,  wept  at  short  intervals 
during  several  weeks  thereafter,  and  assured 
the  Honorable  Richard  that  she  had  no  one 
in  the  world  to  depend  on  besides  him. 
Archibald,  who  had  moved  about  the  house 
during  this  season  of  mourning  with  hand 
some,  vacant  face  and  aimless  steps,  be 
trayed  little  grief  at  the  family  loss  or  com 
prehension  of  it ;  but  whenever  Pennroyal 
was  in  the  way  he  followed  him  round  with  a 
dog-like  fondness  in  strange  contrast  with 
the  vivid  antipathy  which  he  had  manifested 
toward  him  in  his  other  phase  of  being.  As 
for  Archibald's  brother,  now  a  pale  and 
slender  but  dignified  youth  of  nineteen,  he 
assumed  the  title  of  Sir  Edward  and  the 
headship  of  the  house  with  a  grave  propri 
ety  of  bearing  that  surprised  those  who 
had  only  looked  upon  him  as  a  moping 
scholar.  Undemonstratively,  but  surely,  he 
gave  evidence  that  he  understood  the  re 
sponsibilities  of  his  position,  and  that  he 
131 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

knew  how  to  make  himself  respected.  He 
did  not  encourage  his  mother  in  her  unre 
strained  dependence  upon  Pennroyal;  and 
between  the  latter  and  him  there  appears  to 
have  arisen  a  coolness  more  or  less  marked. 
Certainly,  Pennroyal  was  far  from  loving 
the  ceremonious  and  punctilious  young 
baronet,  who  would  neither  drink  nor  play 
cards.  Toward  Archibald,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  exhibited  a  cynical  and  contemptu 
ous  sort  of  good  humor ;  often  amusing  him 
self  by  asking  the  poor  dull-witted  youth  all 
sorts  of  questions  about  events  which  had 
occurred  in  his  enlightened  period,  and 
concerning  which,  of  course,  Archibald  was 
unfathomably  ignorant.  The  Honorable 
Richard  Pennroyal  was  not  the  first  man 
who  has  failed  to  see  whence  his  greatest 
danger  was  to  be  expected. 


132 


VII. 

THAT  piece  of  news  with  which  Mr. 
Pennroyal  had  killed  Sir  Clarence  was  no 
more  than  the  truth.  He  was  the  betrothed 
husband  of  the  beautiful  heiress,  Miss  Bat- 
tledown;  and  the  three  counties,  on  the 
whole,  approved  the  match.  It  would  con 
solidate  two  great  contiguous  estates,  and 
add  one  considerable  fortune  to  another. 
There  was  a  rather  wide  discrepancy  in 
ages,  Pennroyal  being  about  forty,  while 
Miss  Battledown  was  only  in  her  nineteenth 
year ;  but  that  mattered  little  so  that  they 
agreed  in  other  respects.  Miss  Battledown 
was  generally  believed  to  have  very  proper 
ideas  as  to  her  duties  and  responsibilities  as 
an  heiress.  Since  poor  Archibald  Malmai- 
son  lost  his  wits,  she  had  re-ceived  more 
than  one  offer  which  a  young  lady  who  was 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

•weak-minded  enough  to  regard  only  per 
sonal  attractions  might  have  been  tempted 
to  accept;  but  she  had  needed  no  elder  per 
son  to  counsel  her  to  refuse  them.  In  fact, 
she  had  atone  time  allowed  it  to  be  inferred 
that  she  deprecated  the  idea  of  being  mar 
ried  to  any  one;  and  this  demonstrated  a 
commendable  maidenly  reserve ;  but  it  was 
neither  to  be  expected  nor  desired  that  she 
should  adhere  to  such  a  resolution  in  the 
face  of  good  reasons  for  changing  it.  And 
Mr.  Pennroyal  was  an  excellent  reason. 
He  had  passed  through  the  unsteady  period 
of  his  life;  he  had  lived  down  the  vaguely 
discreditable  reports  which  had  once  been 
circulated  at  his  expense ;  he  had  shown 
himself  a  thrifty  landlord ;  and  the  very 
fact  of  his  being  a  widower  invested  him 
with  a  certain  respectability  not  always  ap 
pertaining  to  unmarried  gentlemen  of  his 
age.  Finally,  he  belonged  to  a  noble  and 
distinguished  family ;  and  tho  there  was  no 
likelihood  of  his  acceding  to  the  title,  who 
J34 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

was  better  qualified  than  he  to  illustrate 
the  substantial  virtues  of  an  English  country 
gentleman  ? 

We  are  without  detailed  records  of  the 
early  progress  of  this  charming  love  affair. 
The  inference  is  that  it  proceeded  upon 
orthodox  and  unexceptional  lines.  Mr. 
Pennroyal  would  make  known  to  the  widow 
of  the  late  Colonel  the  aspirations  of  his 
heart,  and  would  receive  from  her  permis 
sion  to  address  himself  to  the  lady  of  his 
choice.  After  the  lapse  of  a  few  weeks  or 
months  (as  the  case  might  be)  of  mutually 
complimentary  interviews  and  correspond 
ence,  the  swain  would  entreat  the  maid  to 
name  the  day  which  was  to  make  him  the 
happiest  of  men.  She  would  delay  and 
hesitate  for  a  becoming  while ;  but  at  length, 
with  a  blush  and  a  smile,  would  indicate  a 
date  too  distant  for  the  lover's  impatience, 
yet  as  near  as  a  respect  for  the  convenances 
of  wealthy  virginity  could  permit.  And 
now,  all  preliminaries  being  settled,  the 
135 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

preparations  would  go  forward  with  liberal 
ity  and  despatch. 

It  had  been  at  first  arranged  that  the 
wedding  should  be  solemnized  at  the  house 
of  the  bride ;  but,  for  some  reason  or  other, 
this  plan  was  subsequently  changed,  and 
Malmaison  was  fixed  upon  as  the  scene  of 
the  ceremony.  The  great  dining-hall, 
which  had  more  than  once  been  put  to 
similar  uses  in  years  gone  by,  was  made 
ready  for  the  occasion.  It  was  a  vast  and 
stately  apartment,  sixty  feet  in  length  by 
forty  in  breadth,  and  its  lofty  ceiling  was 
richly  carved  in  oak;  while  around  the 
walls  were  arranged  suits  of  historic  armor, 
and  swords,  pikes,  and  banners,  the  relics 
of  ancestral  valor.  It  was  on  the  ground 
floor  of  the  most  ancient  part  of  the  house, 
immediately  below  that  suite  of  rooms  of 
which  the  east  chamber  was  one.  It  had 
not  been  used  as  a  dining-hall  since  the  old 
times  when  retainers  fed  at  the  same  table 
with  their  lords;  but  family  celebrations 
136 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

had  been  held  there ;  and  at  the  coming1  of 
age  of  the  late  Sir  Clarence,  in  1775,  it  had 
been  the  scene  of  a  grand  banquet  to  the 
neighboring1  nobility  and  gentry.  The  floor 
at  the  eastern  end  of  the  room  was  raised 
some  eight  inches  above  the  level  of  the 
rest;  and  it  was  here  that  the  bride  and 
bridegroom  were  to  stand.  A  very  reverend 
dean  was  secured  to  pronounce  the  service ; 
and  there  were  to  be  eight  bridesmaids  and 
a  best  man — the  latter  being  none  other 
than  poor  beclouded  Archibald  himself. 

This  choice  created  a  good  deal  of  sur 
prise  and  comment.  The  fact  appears  to 
have  been  that  the  post  of  "  best  man  "  had, 
in  the  first  instance,  been  offered  to  young 
Sir  Edward  Malmaison,  who,  however,  de 
clined  it.  His  reason  for  so  doing  was,  in 
the  first  place,  disapproval  of  the  match,  he 
holding  the  opinion  that  the  widower  of  his 
aunt  might  as  well  have  refrained  from  a 
second  nuptials,  and  that,  at  all  events,  he 
should  have  selected  any  one  rather  than 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

her  who  was  to  have  been  the  wife  of  Archi 
bald.  His  second  objection  was  a  personal 
dislike  to  the  Honorable  Richard,  and  an 
indisposition  to  encourage  his  intimacy  with 
the  family.  But  Sir  Edward  could  not  so 
far  oppose  his  mother's  wishes  as  to  forbid 
the  marriage  being  celebrated  at  Malmaison ; 
and  being  obliged  to  concede  so  much,  he 
wisely  deemed  it  most  consistent  with  his 
dignity  to  adopt  a  manner  as  outwardly 
gracious  as  was  compatible  with  self-respect. 
Accordingly,  when  Pennroyal — whether  ma 
liciously,  or  from  honest  good  will  toward 
one  who  manifested  an  almost  childlike  at 
tachment  to  himself — chose  Sir  Edward's 
brother  in  his  default,  Sir  Edward  offered 
no  open  opposition.  If  he  remonstrated 
privately  with  Archibald,  his  arguments 
were  void  of  effect,  and  would  have  been, 
besides,  counteracted  by  Lady  Malmaison's 
influence.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  Archi 
bald  was  immensely  proud  of  the  compliment 
(as  he  considered  it),  and  took  care  to  cele- 
138 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

brate  his  distinction  at  all  times  and  places, 
opportune  or  otherwise — seeming,  indeed, 
to  think  and  talk  of  little  else.  It  is  not 
probable  that  he  fully  comprehended  the 
significance  of  the  matter,  as  he  was  cer 
tainly  far  from  perceiving  its  ironic  aspect ; 
nevertheless,  his  dull  brain  received  more 
stimulus  from  the  prospect  than  from  any 
other  thing  that  had  befallen  him,  there 
by  furnishing  sardonic  humorists  with  the 
criticism,  that  if  the  Honorable  Richard 
Pennroyal  would  keep  on  burying  his  wives 
and  choosing  Archibald  as  best  man  for  the 
newcomer,  the  youth  might  in  time  become 
approximately  intellectual. 

The  wedding-day  was  fixed  for  the  5th  of 
March,  1821 — a  date  which  was  long  re 
membered  in  the  neighborhood.  Fortu 
nately  we  have  ample  accounts  of  everything 
that  occurred — the  testimony  of  many  eye 
witnesses,  which,  tho  varying  in  some  un 
important  details  (as  is  inevitable),  agree 
nevertheless  upon  all  essential  points.  I 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

shall  give  the  gist  of  the  narrative  as  con 
cisely  as  a  proper  attention  to  its  more  im 
portant  phases  will  allow. 

Miss  Kate  Battledown,  with  her  mother, 
came  to  Malmaison  on  the  evening  of  the 
4th,  and  spent  the  night,  the  ceremony  be 
ing  appointed  at  eleven  the  next  forenoon. 
The  young  lady  spent  an  hour  or  so,  before 
going  to  bed,  in  conversation  with  Archi 
bald,  who,  in  his  pleasurable  excitement 
over  the  forthcoming  event,  was  much  more 
lively  and  conversable  than  usual.  As  they 
walked  side  by  side  up  and  down  the  great 
hall,  at  one  end  of  which  some  workmen 
were  still  engaged  in  arranging  the  decora 
tions  for  the  morrow,  they  must  have  made 
a  handsome  picture.  Kate  was  at  this  time 
a  lithe  and  graceful  figure,  slightly  above 
the  medium  height,  and  possessing  a  great 
deal  of  "  style :  "  in  fact,  young  as  she  was, 
she  had  been  for  some  time  regarded  as  a 
model  of  fashion  and  deportment  by  all  the 

aspiring  young  women  within  a  radius  of 
140 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

twenty  miles.  She  was  dressed  on  this 
evening  in  a  gown  of  some  thin  white  ma 
terial,  the  frilled  hem  of  which  failed  by  at 
least  six  inches  to  reach  the  floor,  thereby 
displaying  a  pair  of  arched  feet  and  slender 
ankles  clothed  in  open-work  silk  stockings. 
The  skirt  of  this  gown  began  immediately 
beneath  the  arms,  and  every  contour  of  the 
wearer's  form  could  be  traced  through  its 
close-fitting  and  diaphanous  folds.  Miss 
Battledown's  arms  were  bare  save  for  the 
black  silk  netted  mittens  that  she  wore ;  her 
dark  curling  hair  was  gathered  pyramidally 
on  the  top  of  her  head,  and  fastened  with  a 
black  ribbon ;  a  black  velvet  band  encircled 
her  white  throat,  and  there  was  a  row  of 
black  bows  down  the  front  of  her  dress. 
Her  forehead  was  narrow  and  compact ;  her 
large  brown  eyes  were  perhaps  a  trifle  closer 
together  than  they  should  have  been ;  her 
nose  was  delicate,  her  lips  blunt-cornered, 
and  rather  full  than  thin:  the  whole  ex 
pression  of  her  face  spirited  and  command- 
141 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

ing.  As  for  Archibald,  he  was  a  handsome 
vacancy,  so  to  speak — a  fine  physical  man 
wasted  for  lack  of  a  spiritual  man  to  carry 
him  about  and  use  him.  His  regular,  finely 
molded  face,  with  its  healthy  pallor  and 
its  black  eyes  and  hair,  always  had  a  dim, 
pathetic  look  of  having  forgotten  something. 
His  figure,  symmetrical  and  full  of  strength, 
moved  itself  awkwardly  and  unmeaning 
ly,  as  tho  ignorant  of  its  own  capabilities, 
and  rather  encumbered  than  otherwise  by 
their  redundance.  His  smile,  which  drew 
his  features  into  their  handsomest  attitude, 
was  nevertheless  rather  silly,  and  seemed  to 
last  on  after  he  himself  had  forgotten  what 
he  was  smiling  for.  His  hands — strong, 
well-formed  hands  of  the  slender  and  long- 
fingered  type — hung  helplessly  at  the  end 
of  his  arms;  or,  if  he  attempted  to  use 
them,  each  finger  appeared  to  have  a  differ 
ent  idea  of  what  was  to  be  done,  and  one 
and  all  fumbled  drowsily  and  shiftlessly  at 
their  task.  The  young  man  wore  the  high- 
142 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

collared  coat,  short  waistcoat,  and  clinging 
pantaloons  of  the  period ;  and  his  black  hair 
hung  down  on  his  shoulders  in  natural 
luxuriance  of  curls.  •  Poor  Archibald  ac 
cepted  meekly  whatever  was  given  him  to 
put  on;  but  he  would  not  let  his  hair  be 
cut,  or  even  anointed  with  the  incomparable 
oil  of  Macassar. 

"And  so  you  are  glad,  Archie?"  said 
Mistress  Kate,  continuing  their  talk. 

"Oh,  glad — yes,  glad!"  replied  Archie, 
nodding  his  head  slowly  and  solemnly. 

"You  don't  regret  me,  then,  at  all?  " 

"Oh,  regret — no!"  said  Archie,  shaking 
his  head  with  the  same  sapience  and  gravity. 

"  Why  do  you  always  repeat  what  a  person 
says  without  seeming  to  know  what  it  is? 
There  used  to  be  a  time,  sir,  when  regret 
would  have  been  far  too  mild  a  word  for 
you.  Have  you  forgotten  all  that?  Have 
you  forgotten  Lord  Orville  and  Evelina?  " 

"  Forgotten — yes ;  all  forgotten !  " 

"  Come,  now,   I  wish  you  to  remember. 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

You  understand  that  I  am  to  be  married  to 
Richard  Pennroyal  to-morrow — to  Richard 
Pennroyal !  " 

"  Uncle  Richard — dear  Uncle  Richard !  I 
love  Uncle  Richard !  " 

"  Do  you  love  no  one  beside  him?  Don't 
you  love  me?  " 

"Don't  love  you — oh,  no!  " 

"  Archie,  have  you  forgotten  how  we  were 
married  in  the  back  garden,  and  how  you 
used  to  say  I  was  your  little  wife?  And  you 
wanted  to  fight  a  duel  with  Richard  because 
he  had  taken  me  on  his  knee  and  kissed  me  ?  " 
"See  how  pretty!"  exclaimed  Archie, 
whose  attention  had  been  fixed  during  this 
speech  upon  two  of  the  workmen  who  were 
unrolling  between  them  a  piece  of  crimson 
cloth  appertaining  to  the  hangings. 

"  What  a  creature !  "  muttered  Kate  to 
herself.  To  have  her  romantic  souvenirs 
ignored  even  by  this  simpleton  vexed  her  a 
little.  Perhaps,  too,  she  had  another  reason 

for  regretting  her  companion's  witlessness. 
144 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

She  could  remember  when  she  had  cared  for 
him — or  for  something  called  him — more 
than  she  cared  now  for  the  man  she  would 
wed  to-morrow.  Why  was  he  not  the  same 
now  as  then  ?  His  face,  his  hands,  his  figure 
— these  were  the  same,  or  rather  they  were 
handsomer  and  more  manlike  than  formerly. 
Why  could  not  the  soul,  or  whatever  may 
be  that  mysterious  invisible  motive-power 
in  a  man — why  could  it  not  have  stuck  to  its 
fortress  during  these  seven  years  past  ?  Here 
were  five  feet  eleven  of  well-sculptured,  liv 
ing  clay,  that  had  been  growing  and  improv 
ing  for  more  than  one-and-twenty  years ;  and 
for  an  inhabitant,  nothing  but  a  soft,  foolish 
child,  destitute  of  memory,  intelligence,  and 
passion.  Such  reflections  may  have  passed 
through  the  mind  of  the  young  heiress ;  and 
then  she  may  have  thought,  glancing  at  him : 
"  If  my  Archibald  were  here,  to-morrow 
might  see  another  spectacle  than  that  put 
down  in  the  program !  "  She  might  have 

thought  this;    she  did  not,   and  of  course 
10  145 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

would  not  on  any  account  have  uttered  such 
a  sentiment  aloud.  But  it  would  be  unjust 
to  her  taste  and  sensibility  to  suppose  that, 
apart  from  worldly  and  politic  considera 
tions,  she  should  have  really  preferred  a 
sharp-featured,  thin-haired,  close-fisted  gen 
tleman  of  forty  to  a  conceivable  hero  of  half 
that  age,  dowered  with  every  grace  and 
beauty,  not  to  mention  Miss  Tremount's 
seventy  thousand  pounds.  Is  she  to  be 
blamed  if  she  sighed  with  a  passing  regret 
at  that  hero's  mysterious  disappearance? 
Yes,  he  had  disappeared,  more  mysteriously 
and  more  irrevocably  than  old  Sir  Charles 
seventy  years  ago.  Where  in  the  heavens 
or  the  earth  or  under  the  earth,  indeed,  was 
he?  Did  he  still  exist  anywhere?  Might 
she  dream  of  ever  meeting  him  again — that 
hero?  .  .  .!  Bah!  what  nonsense ! 

"Pretty!"  repeated  Archie,  who  in  the 
subsidence  of  his  other  faculties  had  re 
tained  an  appreciation  of  color. 

"  Poor    boy — poor    thing !  "     said    Kate. 
146 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 


"  You  lost  a  great  deal  when  you  lost  your 
wits;  between  being  a  groomsman  and  a 
bridegroom  there  is  a  very  wide  difference. 
And  you  don't  even  care — perhaps  that's 
your  greatest  loss  of  all — ha!  ha!  Come, 
Archie,  it's  time  for  little  fellows  like  you 
to  be  asleep." 

"  Kate '  began  Archie ;  and  paused. 

"What?" 

"  Do  you  love  anybody  ? 

She  met  his  look  of  dull  yet  earnest  in 
quiry  with  a  contemptuous  smile  at  first ;  but 
afterward  her  smile  died  away  and  she 
answered  soberly : 

"  I  did  once." 

"  I  did  once,  too! " 
rejoined  Archie,  with 
a  sort  of  sluggish  ea 
gerness. 

"You  did— when?" 
demanded  she,  with 
the  beginning  of  a 
heart-beat. 

147 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

"  I  think  I  did — once — when  I  was  asleep." 
She   laughed    shortly   and   turned    away. 
'  Yes,    sleep   is    the    best   thing   for    you, 
Archie;  you  had  better  sleep  all  the  time 
now;  it  will  be  too  late  to  wake  up  to-mor 
row.     Good-night,  Archie." 


148 


VIII. 

OLD  Miss  Tremount  had  come  up  from 
Cornwall  for  the  occasion,  accompanied  by 
her  poodle,  her  female  toady,  and  her  father 
confessor.  The  good  lady  had  altered  her 
will  some  years  before  on  hearing  of  her 
favorite  nephew's  changed  condition,  and 
it  was  feared  she  would  leave  her  money  to 
the  Church  of  Rome,  of  which  she  was  a 
member.  But  on  receiving  the  announce 
ment  of  her  intended  visit,  Lady  Malmaison 
had  begun  to  entertain  hopes  that  Sir  Ed 
ward  might  succeed  in  so  favorably  impress 
ing  his  aunt  as  to  induce  her  to  divert  at 
least  some  portion  of  her  thousands  in  his 
direction.  But  it  is  not  likely  that  Miss 
Tremount  had  come  to  Malmaison  with  any 
such  views;  in  fact,  her  reason  for  coming 

had  little  or  no  connection  with   the    late 
149 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

baronet's  family.  It  was  not  generally 
known  that,  between  forty  and  fifty  years 
previously,  there  had  been  tender  passages 
between  Colonel  Battledown  and  this  snuffy 
old  maid,  whose  soul  was  now  divided  be 
tween  her  cards  and  her  psalter.  So  it 
was,  however;  they  were  even  betrothed  to 
one  another,  tho  the  betrothal  was  kept  a 
secret,  the  Colonel  then  being  a  compara 
tively  penniless  young  lieutenant,  and  as 
such  by  no  means  a  desirable  son-in-law 
from  the  parental  point  of  view.  An  elope 
ment  was  contemplated  so  soon  as  the  young 
lady  should  be  of  age ;  and  it  would  be  diffi 
cult  to  explain  the  occasion  of  the  trumpery 
quarrel  between  the  lovers,  which  ended  in 
the  lady  taunting  the  gentleman  with  car 
ing  only  about  her  money,  and  resulted  in 
the  rupture  of  the  engagement.  Doubtless 
it  might  have  been  renewed ;  but  at  this 
juncture  the  lieutenant  was  ordered  away 
on  active  service  to  the  American  Colonies, 
where  he  remained  for  some  years.  Later, 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

he  was  stationed  in  India;  and  the  next 
time  he  met  his  old  love,  in  London,  he  was 
twenty  years  older  than  when  she  had  last 
seen  him,  and  a  major,  and  with  ribbons  on 
his  breast  and  a  wife  on  his  arm.  Miss 
Tremount  never  betrayed  any  grief  or  disap 
pointment,  except  in  so  far  as  she  remained 
single  all  her  life,  and  latterly  waxed  re 
ligious  and  became  a  convert  to  the  Jesuits. 
But  when  the  Colonel  was  dead,  and  she 
heard  that  his  daughter  was  about  to  be 
married,  she  resolved  to  make  a  journey  to 
Malmaison;  and  who  can  tell  whether  in 
the  bottom  of  her  heart,  hidden  even  from 
her  father  confessor,  she  may  not  have 
cherished  a  secret  purpose  of  making  Mis- 
tress  Kate  her  heir?  It  is  certain,  at  all 
events,  that  she  brought  her  will  with  her 
in  her  trunk. 

This  romance,  I  say,  was  known   to  but 
few ;  and  as  Miss  Battledown  did  not  happen 
to  be  among  the  number,  she  was  less  cor 
dial  in  her  behavior  to  the  old  lady  than  she 
'51 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

might  otherwise  have  been.  Kate  was  not 
constitutionally  a  lover  of  old  women,  and 
not  herself  old  enough  to  be  aware  that  no 
truly  charitable  person  should  ever  be  in 
attentive  to  seventy  thousand  pounds,  no 
matter  to  how  unprepossessing  a  human 
being  the  money  might  be  attached.  Her 
manner,  therefore,  was  tolerant  and  pat 
ronizing  rather  than  flattering;  and  honest 
Lady  Malmaison,  tho  she  liked  Kate  very 
much,  and  would  have  been  delighted  to 
see  her  inherit  seventy  thousand  pounds 
from  the  Shah  of  Persia  or  the  President  of 
the  United  States,  was  not  quite  so  unnatural 
an  idiot  as  to  recommend  to  the  young  lady 
a  more  conciliating  behavior.  As  for  Miss 
Tremount,  she  preserved  her  composure 
and  kept  her  counsel  perfectly,  and  never 
referred  to  her  will  even  in  her  most  un 
guarded  moments.  She  was  courteous  and 
complimentary  to  Sir  Edward,  indulgent  to 
Archibald,  kind  and  sisterly  to  Lady  Mal 
maison,  and  quietly  observant  of  everything 
152 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

and  everybody.  On  the  wedding  morning 
she  criticized  and  admired  the  bride's  toilet 
with  a  taste  and  appreciation  that  caused 
the  proud  young  beauty's  eyes  to  sparkle; 
and  just  before  the  party  entered  the  hall, 
she  pressed  Kate's  hand  affectionately,  and 
said  in  her  gentlest  tones  that  she  hoped 
she  would  be  happy.  "  I  have  always  looked 
upon  your  mother  as  one  of  the  happiest  of 
women,  my  dear,"  she  added.  "May  your 
fortune  equal  hers!"  This  good-natured 
benediction  caused  Lady  Malmaison  a  good 
deal  of  anxiety;  Sir  Edward  smiled  aside 
at  what  he  fancied  was  a  subtle  stroke  of 
irony;  and  Kate  herself  became  thoughtful, 
and  regretted  that  it  was  rather  late  in  the 
day  to  begin  to  show  Miss  Tremount  what 
a  charming  elderly  lady  she  thought  her. 

The  great  hall  looked  its  stateliest  that 
morning.  The  March  sunshine  came  slant 
ing  through  the  tall  windows,  and  lay  in 
bright  patches  upon  the  broad  floor,  or 
gleamed  upon  the  ancient  swords  and  breast- 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

plates,  or  glowed  in  the  festal  hangings. 
Quite  a  large  number  of  titled  and  fashion 
able  persons  were  collected  at  the  tipper  end 
of  the  room,  whispering  and  rustling,  and 
dressed  in  what  we  should  now  consider 
very  wonderful  costumes,  tho  they  were 
all  the  mode  then.  A  few  minutes  before 
eleven  the  very  reverend  dean  and  an  as 
sistant  divine,  together  with  the  bridegroom 
and  Archibald,  entered  and  took  their  places 
in  great  pomp  and  dignity  beneath  the  can 
opy  which  had  been  constructed  for  the 
occasion,  and  which  was  covered  with  fresh 
flowers  whose  fragrance  breathed  over  the 
gay  assemblage  like  a  sacred  incense.  At 
eleven  o'clock  there  was  a  general  hush  of 
expectation ;  and  presently  the  door  at  the 
bottom  of  the  hall  was  thrown  open,  and 
the  bridal  procession  came  in.  Very  pretty 
they  looked  as  they  paced  up  the  long 
stretch  of  carpeting  which  had  been  laid 
down  for  them  to  walk  upon,  and  which  had 
been  scattered  over  with  a  profusion  of 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

flowers.  The  bride,  with  her  veil  and  her 
orange-blossoms,  was  supported  on  the  arm 
of  Sir  Henry  Rollinson  (the  good  doctor 
had  been  knighted  the  year  before  by  an 
appreciative  sovereign),  who  was  to  give 
her  away.  She  looked  calm,  pale,  and  ex 
ceedingly  handsome.  The  widow  of  Colo 
nel  Battledown  was  escorted  by  Lord  Epsom, 
the  Honorable  Richard's  elder  brother,  and 
wore  a  very  splendid  pink  turban  and  red 
eyes.  But  all  these  details,  and  many  more, 
may  be  read  in  The  Morning  Post  of  March 
7,  1821,  to  which  I  refer  the  curious. 

The  service  commenced.  As  Sir  Henry 
Rollinson  was  in  the  act  of  giving  the  bride 
away  he  happened  to  glance  at  Archibald, 
and  observed  that  the  latter  wore  a  very 
strange  expression  on  his  face ;  and  a  mo 
ment  afterward  the  young  man  dropped  into 
a  chair  that  happened  to  be  near  him,  press 
ing  his  head  between  his  hands  and  breath 
ing  heavily.  No  one  else  noticed  this  in 
cident;  and  Sir  Henry,  who  supposed  the 
'55 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

youth  was  going  to  faint,  was  of  course 
unable  at  the  time  to  afford  any  assistance. 
The  service  went  on.  Richard  Pennroyal 
and  Catherine  Battledown  were  pronounced 
man  and  wife ;  and  man  was  warned  not  to 
put  asunder  those  whom  God  had  joined  to 
gether.  The  ring  shone  on  the  new-made 
wife's  finger.  The  very  reverend  dean 
gave  the  pair  his  blessing.  All  this  time 
Archibald  remained  with  his  head  between 
his  hands,  the  physician  watching  him  not 
without  apprehensions,  and  inwardly  curs 
ing  the  folly  of  those  who  were  responsible 
for  the  poor  half-witted  creature's  appear 
ance  in  such  a  scene. 

The  register  was  now  brought  forth,  in 
which  the  happy  couple  and  their  friends 
were  to  inscribe  their  names.  The  prin 
cipal  personages  signed  first.  It  came 
to  Archibald's  turn.  It  had  previously 
been  ascertained  that  he  knew  how  to 
string  together  the  requisite  letters  upon 
paper.  There  he  sat,  with  his  head  in 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

his  hands.  Sir  Henry  touched  him  on  the 
shoulder. 

"Now,  then,  lad — Archie!  wake  up! 
Come!  you're  wanted!  "  He  spoke  sharply 
and  imperatively,  in  the  hope  of  rousing  the 
young  fellow  out  of  his  stupor,  and  at  least 
getting  him  decently  out  of  the  room^ 

Archibald  raised  his  face,  which  was 
deadly  pale  and  covered  with  sweat,  and 
looked  at  the  persons  around  him  with  a 
kind  of  amazed  defiance.  He  started  to  his 
feet,  oversetting  his  chair  as  he  did  so, 
which  rolled  down  the  steps  of  the  dais  and 
fell  with  a  crash  on  the  stone  floor  below. 

"I  came  in  by  the  staircase  door!"  he 
said  in  an  excited  voice,  which  startled 
every  one  who  heard  it,  so  different  was  it 
from  his  usual  tones.  "  If  you  thought  it 
locked,  you  were  wrong.  How  else  could  I 
have  come?  .  .  .  When  did  you  bring  me 
here  ?  This  is  the  great  hall !  What  have 
you  been  doing?  How  came  you  here?  " 

There  was  a  dead  silence.      Every   one 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

felt  that  some  ugly  thing  was  about  to  hap 
pen.  Several  women  began  to  laugh  hyster 
ically.  It  seems  to  have  been  supposed,  at 
first,  that  Archibald  had  exchanged  his  in 
offensive  idiocy  for  a  condition  of  raving 
madness.  The  old  physician  was  probably 
the  only  one  present  who  had  a  glimmering 
of  what  might  be  the  truth.  The  Honor 
able  Richard  Pennroyal  had  none.  He 
pushed  between  the  venerable  knight  and 
his  "best  man,"  and  relying  upon  his  oft- 
proved  and  established  influence  over  the 
latter,  he  took  him  firmly  by  the  arm  and 
looked  in  his  face. 

"  Don't  make  a  fool  of  yourself,  Archie!  " 
said  he  in  a  low,  distinct  voice  in  which 
was  a  subdued  ring  of  menace.  "  It's  all 
right.  You're  my  best  man,  you  know. 
You  are  to  sign  your  name  as  one  of  the 
witnesses  of  the  marriage — that's  all." 

"I  have  witnessed  no  marriage,"  replied 
Archibald,  returning  with  surprise  Richard's 
look.  "Who  are  you?  "  he  continued,  after 
158 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

a  moment.  Then  he  exclaimed :  "  You  are 
Richard  Pennroyal!  I  didn't  know  you  at 
first,  you  look  so  old!  " 

"Oh,  the  fellow's  quite  mad!"  muttered 
Richard,  turning  away  with  a  shrug  of  the 
shoulders.  "  I  should  have  known  better 
than  to  run  the  risk  of  having  such  a  lunatic 
here.  We  must  have  him  moved  out  of  the 
room  at  once." ' 

Young  Sir  Edward  overheard  this  latter 
sentence.  "  Pardon  me  for  reminding  you 
that  my  brother  is  at  home  in  Malmaison," 
he  said  gravely. 

"Oh!  as  you  please,  of  course,"  returned 
Richard,  frowning. 

Meanwhile  Archibald  had  caught  sight 
of  Kate,  and  recognized  her  at  once;  and 
breaking  away  from  his  mother  and  Sir 
Henry  Rollinson,  who  were  endeavoring  to 
quiet  him,  he  came  up  to  her  and  planted 
himself  in  front  of  her,  just  as  Richard  was 
approaching  to  take  her  off.  Archibald  took 
both  her  hands  in  his. 
159 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

"  Kate,  I  have  never  seen  you  look  so 
beautiful,"  he  said.  "But  why  have  you 
got  this  white  veil  on? — and  orange-blos 
soms!  It's  like  a  wedding.  What  were 
they  saying  about  a  wedding?  .  .  .  Is  it  to 
be  our  wedding?  " 

''The  wedding  has  already  taken  place, 
my  dear  Archie,"  interposed  the  bride 
groom,  offering  his  arm  to  the  bride,  and 
smiling  with  no  very  good  grace.  "This 
lady  is  now  Mrs.  Pennroyal.  Stand  aside, 
like  a  good  boy." 

Archibald  grasped  Richard  by  the  padded 
sleeve  of  his  coat,  and  with  an  angry  move 
ment  of  his  powerful  arm  threw  him  back 
ward  into  the  embrace  of  his  new  mother- 
in-law,  who  happened  to  be  coming  up  from 
behind. 

"You  are  under  my  father's  roof  or  I 
would  tell  you  that  you  are  a  liar!"  said  the 
young  man  grimly.  Then  turning  to  the 
bride,  who  had  said  not  a  word  since  this 

scene  began,    but  had  kept    her  eyes  con- 
160 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

stantly  fixed  upon  the  chief  actor  in  it — "  He 
shall  not  insult  you  again,  my  dear.  But 
all  this  is  very  strange.  What  does  it  mean  ?  " 

"It  means  ...  it  is  too  late!"  replied 
the  girl  in  a  low,  bitter  voice.  What  could 
she  have  meant  by  that? 

Richard,  white  with  fury,  came  up  again. 
There  was  a  general  murmur  and  move 
ment  in  the  surrounding  assemblage,  who 
expected  to  see  some  deed  of  violence  com 
mitted. 

"  Mrs.  Pennroyal,  '  said  he  between  his 
teeth,  "  I  am  obliged  to  request  you  per 
emptorily  to  take  my  arm  and — and  leave 
this  house  where  guests  are  insulted  and 
outraged!  " 

Archibald  turned,  his  face  darkening. 
But  Kate  held  up  her  hand  entreatingly ,  and 
Archibald  caught  the  gleam  of  the  plain 
gold  ring  on  her  finger.  At  that  sight  he 
stopped  abruptly,  and  his  arms  fell  to  his 
sides.  "  Is  it  true?  "  he  asked  in  a  tone  of 

bewilderment. 

1 1  161 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

Here  Sir  Edward  interposed  again  with 
his  cool  courtesy:  "Mr.  Pennroyal,  and  my 
friends,  I  trust  you  will  find  it  possible  to 
overlook  the  behavior  of  my  brother.  You 
may  see  that  he  is  not  himself.  When  he 
has  had  time  to  recover  himself  he  will  ask 
pardon  of  each  and  all  of  you.  Mr.  Penn 
royal,  I  entreat  you  and  your  wife  to  for 
get  what  has  passed,  and  to  reconsider  the 
heavy  imputation  which  has  been  cast  upon 
my  house.  Let  the  shadow  pass  away  which 
has  "threatened  for  a  moment  this — this  aus 
picious  occasion '  " 

If  the  last  words  were  ironical,  the  irony 
was  too  grave  and  ceremonious  to  be  obtru 
sive.  Pennroyal  was  fain  to  return  Sir 
Edward's  bow  with  the  best  grace  he  could 
muster.  The  rest  of  the  company  accepted 
the  apology  as  at  least  a  formal  way  out  of 
the  difficulty.  An  effort  was  made  to  re 
sume  indifferent  conversation,  and  to  act  as 
if  nothing  had  happened.  Sir  Edward,  with 

admirable  self-possession  and  smiling  court- 
162 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

esy,  marshalled  the  guests  out  of  the  hall 
to  a  neighboring  room  in  which  the  wed 
ding-breakfast  had  been  set  out.  Archibald 
remained  behind,  and  the  Doctor  and  old 
Miss  Tremount  remained  with  him.  He 
stood  still,  with  his  arms  at  his  sides,  his 
glance  fixed  upon  the  floor.  The  Doctor 
and  Miss  Tremount  exchanged  a  look,  and 
then  the  latter  went  up  to  him  and  took 
one  of  his  hands  between  hers. 

"Do  you  know  me,  my  dear?"  she 
said. 

Archibald  looked  at  her,  and  shook  his 
head. 

"  I  am  your  aunt,  Ruth  Tremount.  My 
dear,  I  am  so  sorry  for  you." 

"  Can  you  tell  me  what  is  the  matter  with 
me?  Am  I  mad?  " 

"On  the  contrary,"  put  in  the  Doctor, 
"  you  are  yourself  for  the  second  time  in 
your  life.  You've  overslept  yourself,  my 
lad,  that's  all!" 

Archibald  cast  his  eyes  round  the  hall  as 
163 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 


if  searching  for  some  one.      "  Where  is  my 
father?  "  he  asked  at  length. 

There  was  an  awkward  pause.  Finally 
Miss  Tremount  said  :  "  My  dear,  your  sleep 
has  lasted  seven  years.  Much  may  happen 
in  such  a  length  of  time." 

"But  my  father — where  is  he?  I  want 
to  see  him — I  will  see  him !  "  and  he  made 
some  steps  toward  the  door. 

"  My  poor  lad,  you  can  not  see  him  now— 

he   ...    he— 

"Where  is 
he?  "  cried  Ar 
chibald,  stamp 
ing  his  foot. 

"  He  has  been 
for  five  years  in 
his  grave." 

A  r  c  h  i  b  a  1  d 
stared  at  the  Doc 
tor  a  moment, 
and  then  burst 

out  laughing. 
164 


IX. 

BUT  Archibald  had  come  into  possession 
of  his  intelligent  soul  once  more ;  or  he  was 
awake  again ;  or  the  pressure  of  the  skull 
upon  the  cerebrum  had  yet  another  time 
been  relieved ;  at  all  events  there  was  now 
a  brilliant  youth  in  the  flesh-and-blood  en 
velope  which,  an  hour  before,  had  contained 
only  a  half-witted  boy.  When  the  first 
crash  of  the  restoration  was  over,  the  new 
man  began  to  accommodate  himself  with 
wonderful  rapidity  and  keenness  to  the 
strange  environment.  He  knew  ^f  nothing 
that  had  happened  since  that  afternoon 
when  he  spoke  with  Kate  in  the  east  cham 
ber  while  the.  blood  oozed  from  the  cut  on 
his  forehead ;  but  he  accepted  the  facts  with 
more  than  a  youth's  resolution  and  stoicism. 

The  world  had  been  turning  round  while  he 
'65 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

had  been  absent — somewhere!  Well,  then, 
by  the  force  of  his  will  and  his  splendid 
faculties  he  would  get  on  even  terms  with 
it  again — and  more.  Injury  had  been  done 
him — irreparable  injury,  perhaps,  but  which 
still  might  be  avenged.  He  was  not  dis 
couraged;  his  spirit  seemed  to  come  upon 
life  with  all  the  freshness  of  a  seven -years' 
rest,  and  it  reckoned  nothing  impossible. 

Of  course  his  fresh  metamorphosis  created 
plenty  of  comment  among  the  neighbors; 
Archibald  Malmaison  was  the  most  talked- 
of  man  in  that  part  of  the  country  for  several 
weeks,  the  impossibility  of  arriving  at  any 
satisfactory  conclusion  regarding  his  condi 
tion  or  conditions  prolonging  the  wonder  so 
far  beyond  the  proverbial  nine  days.  One 
party  were  vehemently  of  the  opinion  that 
he  was  mad ;  another  party  opposed  this 
view  with  equal  energy  and  just  as  much 
foundation.  Both  sides  put  forward  plenty 
of  arguments,  and  when  they  were  refuted, 

appealed  to  Sir  Henry  Rollinson,  who  con- 
166 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

firmed    them   both    with    equally    sagacious 
shakes  of  the  head. 

But  this  good  gentleman  was  now  getting 
near  the  end  of  his  days,  and,  in  fact,  ceased 
living  in  the  world  before  the  close  of  the 
year.  He  did  not  depart  without  leaving  a 
successor,  however,  and  one  who  bade  fair 
to  do  credit  to  his  ancestry.  This  was  Mr. 
E.  Forbes  Rollinson,  his  son,  who  had 
concluded  a  course  of  study  at  Vienna  and 
Paris,  and  who  returned  to  his  native  land 
with  the  highest  diplomas  that  continental 
schools  could  give  him.  He  was  at  this 
time  a  young  man  of  about  five-and-twenty, 
with  a  great  square  head  and  "a  short,  com 
pact  figure.  The  wild  jungle  of  beard  and 
the  terribly  penetrating  eye-glass  which 
distinguished  him  in  later  times  had  not 
then  made  their  appearance.  Well,  the 
new  Dr.  Rollinson  had  known  something  of 
Archibald  as  a  boy,  and  was  of  course  much 
interested  (apart  from  his  friendly  feelings) 

in  so  remarkable  a  case.     His  theory  upon 
167 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

the  matter,  in  so  far  as  he  had  formed  one, 
did  not  on  all  points  coincide  with  his  fa 
ther's,  he  belonged  to  a  somewhat  more 
recent  school — more  critical  and  less  dog 
matic.  Still,  it  would  be  hazardous  to  as 
sert  that  young  Dr.  Rollinson  knew  exactly 
what  was  the  matter  with  Archibald — 
especially  as  he  has  seen  reason  to  modify 
his  first  impressions  more  than  once  during 
the  last  fifty  years.  It  is  enough  to  remark 
here  that  he  thought  the  affection  was  of  a 
rhythmic  or  regularly  recurrent  character — 
a  notion  which  its  previous  history  went  far 
to  justify ;  and  he  consequently  looked  with 
interest  to  see'  whether  the  lapse  of  another 
seven  years  would  bring  about  another 
change.  To  have  discovered  the  orbit,  so 
to  speak,  of  a  malady,  is  not,  indeed,  to 
have  explained  it .  but  it  is  always  some 
thing.  It  would  be  more  interesting  to 
know  what  Archibald  thought  of  himself; 
and  were  I,  in  this  instance,  a  novelist  deal 
ing  with  a  creation  of  my  own,  I  might 
168 


ARCHIBALD    MALM  A I  SON. 

not  shrink  from  an  attempt  to  analyze  his 
mental  state.  As  it  is,  I  can  do  no  more 
than  point  to  the  curious  field  of  conjecture 
which  it  here  afforded :  the  young  man  left 
no  confessions  or  self-analytic  diaries;  still 
less  did  he  discuss  his  peculiarities  with 
other  people.  With  excellent  good  sense 
and  no  small  courage  he  accepted  things 
as  they  were ,  he  felt  his  individuality  in 
no  way  diminished  by  the  circumstance  that 
it  was  intermittent  or  exchangeable  and 
perhaps  it  seemed  no  more  strange  to  him 
than  the  nightly  falling  asleep  of  all  man 
kind  does  to  them.  .  The  one  mystery  is 
quite  as  strange  as  the  other  only  the  sleep 
of  seven  hours  is  common  to  all,  while  that 
of  seven  years  is  probably  unprecedented. 

One  grotesque  question  suggests  itself— 
or  may  do  so  shortly — and  that  is  whether 
Archibald  would  be  responsible  in  one 
phase  of  his  being  for  a  crime  committed  in 
another — for  a  crime,  or  any  other  act  in 
volving  the  welfare  or  condition  of  other 
169 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

people.  The  analogy  with  sleep  does  not 
here  seem  altogether  satisfactory .  for  in 
ordinary  sleep,  or  even  somnambulism,  we 
are  not  in  active  relations  with  our  fellow 
being's,  and  consequently  our  law-givers 
have  not  devised  a  code  to  control  our  do 
ings  while  in  that  state.  A  jury,  in  de 
livering  its  verdict,  would  be  embarrassed 
by  the  reflection  that  altho  only  one  half 
of  the  culprit  before  them  was  guilty,  they 
could  not  give  that  half  its  just  punishment 
without  at  the  same  time  unjustly  punishing 
the  half  that  was  guiltless.  A  consistent 
individuality,  therefore,  tho  often  a  burden 
and  a  weariness,  is  still  not  without  its  ad 
vantages. 

Meanwhile  an  important  change  had  taken 
place  in  the  relations  between  the  family 
of  Malmaison  and  the  Honorable  Richard 
Pennroyal.  The  latter  conceived  himself 
to  have  been  affronted  by  the  former  on  the 
occasion  of  his  marriage,  and  refused  a 

reconciliation — which,  to  tell  the  truth,  nei- 
170 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

ther  Sir  Edward  nor  his  younger  brother 
was  too  anxious  to  force  upon  him.  Lady 
Malmaison  was  still  for  peace,  but  her 
opinion  had  ceased  to  have  much  weight  in 
the  family  counsels.  At  length  matters 
came  to  a  head  somewhat  in  the  following 
manner. 

Sir  Edward  Malmaison  and  Pennroyal 
happened  to  meet  at  the  table  of  a  common 
friend,  and  after  the  ladies  had  withdrawn, 
Pennroyal,  who  had  taken  more  wine  than 
was  usual  with  him,  began  to  talk  at  Sir 
Edward  in  an  unnecessarily  audible  and 
offensive  tone.  Sir  Edward  kept  his  temper, 
and  made  no  reply,  not  having  as  yet  been 
personally  addressed.  Pennroyal  after  a 
while  came  round  to  where  he  was  sitting, 
and  the  two  gentlemen  presently  fell  into 
conversation.  Pennroyal  finally  declared 
that  he  had  been  insulted  by  a  man  who  re 
tained  his  present  title  and  estates  solely  by 
his  (Pennroyal's)  permission  and  kindness. 

Sir    Edward    was    constrained    to   ask    him 

ryi 


ARCHIBALJ )    MALMAISON 

what  he  meant.  Pennroyal  thereupon  be 
gan  to  utter  disparaging  reflections  upon  the 
late  vSir  Clarence,  who,  he  intimated,  was 
not  legally  entitled  to  his  name.  This 
brought  on  a  dead  silence,  and  all  eyes  were 
turned  upon  Sir  Edward,  whose  pale  coun 
tenance  became  yet  paler  as  he  said,  with 
his  imperturbable  courteousness  of  phrase: 

"  I  must  entreat  Mr.  Pennroyal  not  to  in 
dulge  in  innuendoes,  but  to  state  explicitly 
whether  he  intends  anything  dishonorable 
to  my  father." 

"  To  a  man  of  the  world  a  word  is  enough, " 
responded  the  Honorable  Richard  insolent 
ly.  "  I  am  not  here  to  tutor  schoolboys  in 
the  comprehension  of  the  English  tongue." 

"  I  can  not  allow  you  to  evade  my  ques 
tion,"  rejoined  Sir  Edward,  with  a  gleam  in 
his  eye,  tho  without  an  alteration  in  his 
voice.  "  You  must  explain  what  you  have 
seen  fit  to  insinuate  before  these  gentlemen, 
one  way  or  the  other." 

Pennroyal   laughed.      "  When    you    have 
172 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

lived  a  few  years  longer,  young  gentleman," 
said  he,  "you  will  learn  to  be  cautious  how 
you  ask  for  too  explicit  information  regard 
ing  the  morals  of  your  grandparents." 

At  this  brutal  remark  there  was  a  general 
expression  of  indignation  among  the  hear 
ers;  but  Pennroyal,  in  no  way  abashed, 
added:  "Let  him  disprove  it  if  he  can. 
Since  he  provokes  me  to  it,  I  affirm  it — his 
father  had  no  right  to  the  title.  Let  him 
prove  the  contrary  if  he  can.  I  didn't  force 
on  the  discussion,  but  I  will  tell  young  Sir 
Edward  Malmaison,  as  he  calls  himself,  that 
he  holds  property  to  which  he  has  no  claim, 
and  that  it  depends  upon  my  good  will  and 
pleasure  how  long  he  holds  it." 

The  host — he  was  Francis  Hastings  Kent, 
Esq.  and  M.P.,  the  same  who  afterward  be 
came  famous  in  the  Corn-law  controversy— 
here  interposed,  and  "spoke  the  sense  of 
the  meeting."  "Egad,  Pennroyal,"  cried 
he,  "  you  are  drunk,  and  you  have  insulted  a 
gentleman  at  my  table.  I'll  trouble  you  to 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

make  him  an  apology.  I  have  no  doubt 
that  Sir  Edward  Malmaison's  titles  are  just 
as  good  as  yours  or  mine,  and,  begad,  they 
sha'n't  be  called  in  question  here,  at  all 
events.  I  say  you  shall  make  Sir  Edward 
an  apology !  " 

There  was  only  one  man  in  the  room  who 
evinced  any  disagreement  with  this  speech, 
and  that  one  was  Major  Bolingbroke,  a  re 
tired  officer  of  good  family  but  of  not  alto 
gether  unexceptionable  personal  repute ;  he 
was  believed  to  have  fought  more  duels  than 
are  usually  considered  desirable ;  and  he 
had  for  some  months  past  been  a  constant 
inmate  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Pennroyal. 

"It's  no  affair  of  mine,  of  course,"  said 
this  gallant  warrior,  "  if  Sir  Edward  chooses 
to  put  up  with  such  language  from  a  man 
on  the  ground  that  he  was  drunk  when  he 
used  it.  Only,  if  there's  going  to  be  an 
apology,  I  should  advise  Sir  Edward  to  ex 
act  a  very  full  one,  and  lose  no  time  about  it. " 

Sr  Edward,  however,  rose  carelessly,  and 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

said  with  a  smile  that  he  could  not  think  of 
contributing  any  further  to  the  unfortunate 
interruption  of  the  social  harmony ;  and 
adding  that  he  had  no  doubt  Mr.  Pennroyal 
would,  as  soon  as  he  had  had  time  to  recol 
lect  himself,  make  every  explanation  that 
the  case  demanded,  he  bowed  and  left  the 
room. 

It  was  afterward  suspected  that  Penn 
royal' s  intoxication  had  been  assumed  for 
the  purpose  of  insulting  the  heir  of  Mal- 
maison  with  the  more  impunity ;  and  that 
the  Major  was  present  expressly  to  aid 
and  abet  him.  What,  then,  was  the  object, 
and  what  the  grounds,  of  the  charge  which 
Pennroyal  made?  With  respect  to  the  lat 
ter,  nothing  was  known  until  later;  but  the 
immediate  result  was  this.  Sir  Edward 
went  home,  and  appeared  more  cheerful 
and  in  better  spirits  than  usual.  He  spent 
the  next  forenoon  in  his  chamber,  appar 
ently  engaged  in  looking  over  some  papers. 
In  the  afternoon  he  mentioned  to  his  mother 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

and  Archibald  that  he  should  be  obliged  to 
run  up  to  London  for  a  few  days  on  busi 
ness,  and  that  he  must  start  that  evening. 
He  had  made  no  allusion  to  the  affair  at 
Francis  Kent's  house,  and  neither  Archibald 
nor  Lady  Malmaison  knew  anything  about 
it.  That  evening,  accordingly,  he  bade 
them  good-by,  and  departed  seemingly  with 
a  light  heart,  bidding  his  brother  act  as  his 
accredited  plenipotentiary  while  he  was 
away,  and  promising  his  mother  to  bring 
her  the  latest,  fashion  in  turbans  when  he 
returned. 

He  was  absent  five  days.  The  Honor 
able  Richard  Pennroyal,  who  had  happened 
to  be  likewise  called  away  on  business  at 
the  .same  time,  returned  to  his  house  some 
twenty-four  hours  before  Sir  Edward  \vas 
brought  in  a  carriage  to  Malmaison  with 
a  bullet-hole  just  beneath  the  collar-bone. 
The  fact  is,  the  two  gentlemen  had  traveled 
to  Belgium  instead  of  to  London,  and  had 

there  shot  at  each  other  in  the  presence  of 
176 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

Major  Bolingbroke  (who  gave  the  word)  and 
of  a  friend  of  Sir  Edward's  whose  name 
has  not  come  down  to  us.  Pennroyal  had 
escaped  untouched;  Sir  Edward,  under  the 
care  of  Dr.  Rollinson  the  younger,  lay  for 
several  weeks  in  a  critical  condition ;  but 
when  the  bullet  had  been  extracted  he  i al 
lied,  and  was  able  before  long  to  rise  from 
his  bed  and  walk  about  the  house.  But  tho 
his  strength  had  improved,  he  appeared  to 
be  harassed  in  mind ;  he  carried  on  a  con 
siderable  correspondence  with  the  family 
lawyers  in  London,  and  was  continually 
searching  for  something. — what,  no  one 
could  tell.  Whatever  it  was  he  did  not  find 
it,  and  his  anxiety  did  not  diminish. 

Archibald  had  of  course  asked  him  about 
the  particulars  of  the  duel,  and  what  led  to 
it;  but  his  brother  had  sought  to  make  light 
of  the  affair,  saying  merely  that  Pennroyal 
had  been  very  rude  and  had  failed  to  make 
a  suitable  apology ;  and  that  the  insult  hav 
ing  been  public,  he  was  forced  to  resent  it. 
12  177 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

Tn  answer  to  Archibald's  question  as  to  the 
subject  of  his  present  correspondence  with 
the  lawyers,  he  replied  that  it  related  to 
some  old  family  traditions,  and  possessed 
only  an  antiquarian  interest.  Archibald 
accepted  these  answers  in  silence,  but  with 
entire  incredulity.  The  brothers  were  fond 
of  each  other,  but  the  strange  conditions  of 
the  younger 's  life  had  prevented  their  at 
taining  really  intimate  and  confidential  re 
lations.  Archibald  was  too  proud  either 
to  demand  further  particulars  from  Sir 
Edward,  or  to  make  inquiries  elsewhere. 
Moreover,  there  was  perhaps  less  need  of 
information  on  his  side  than  on  that  of  his 
brother,  had  the  latter  but  known  it. 
Archibald  had  secrets  of  his  own. 

Pennroyal,  meanwhile,  kept  quiet,  waiting 
for  the  affair  to  blow  over.  Whether  he 
had  intended  to  kill  Sir  Edward,  or  whether 
he  was  glad  that  the  duel  had  not  resulted 
fatally,  I  can  not  tell.  Of  course  neither  he 

nor  his  wife  were  seen  again  at  Malmaison. 
178 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

The  neighbors  were  for  some  time  disposed 
to  give  him  the  cold  shoulder:  but  when 
his  antagonist  recovered,  and  the  matter 
had  lost  its  first  freshness,  there  appeared 
to  be  little  more  against  him  than  that  he 
had  committed  an  indiscretion  while  under 
the  influence  of  liquor,  and  had  afterward 
atoned  for  it  in  accordance  with  a  code  of 
honor  which  had  not,  at  that  epoch,  fallen 
entirely  into  disuse.  And,  after  all,  what 
business  was  it  of  theirs?  Pennroyal,  how 
ever  objectionable  in  himself,  owned  a  large 
property  and  belonged  to  a  good  family. 
In  short,  society  received  the  honorable 
prodigal  in  its  bosom  once  more,  and  Mrs. 
Pennroyal  reigned  the  undisputed  toast  for 
a  while  longer. 

But  at  the  end  of  six  or  seven  months  a 
new  order  of  events  began.  Sir  Edward, 
either  from  anxiety  or  from  some  impru 
dent  exposure,  fell  ill  again,  and  his  wound 
opened  afresh  and  became  inflamed.  His 

constitution  had  never  been  good  for  much, 
'79 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

and  the  chances  were  all  against  its  being 
able  to  survive  this  trial.  Dr.  Rollinson 
did  all  that  could  be  done ;  but  one  morn 
ing  Sir  Edward  asked  to  see  his  brother,  and 
when  the  two  were  left  alone  together  he 
said: 

"Well,  Archie,  how  shall  you  like  to  be 
Sir  Archibald?  " 

For  a  minute  they  looked  at  one  another 
in  silence.  "  Do  you  think  so?  "  then  said 
the  younger,  frowning  a  little. 

"  I  am  certain  of  it." 

"Ned,  we  are  brothers,"  said  Archi 
bald. 

The  young  men  grasped  hands,  and  Archi 
bald  half  sat  on  the  edge  of  the  bed,  look 
ing  down  at  the  invalid,  whose  face  was  now 
bony  in  its  emaciation,  and  his  eyes  sunken 
and  bright. 

"Archie,  I  have  something  to  tell  you." 

"  I  feared  so." 

"  It  is  not  anything  that  you  could  expect. 

That  quarrel  betwreen  Richard  and  me  was 
180 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

about  our  father.  Richard  said  he  was — 
that  is"— 

"  Don't  fear.     Say  it!  " 

"  That  his  mother  was  not  Lady  Mal- 
maison." 

"He  lied!" 

"So  I  told  him.  But  that's  not  the  end 
of  it,  unfortunately.  He  defied  me  to  prove 
the  contrary.  Ever  since  I  first  got  up  after 
the  duel,  I  have  been  looking  for  the  papers 
relating  to  Sir  Clarence's  birth.  They're 
not  to  be  found.  There  is  no  record  that 
our  grandmother  had  any  son  at  all.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  is  indirect  evidence 
that  our  grandfather  had  an  affair  with  some 
woman.  .  .  .  The  amount  of  it  is,  I  have 
not  been  able  to  establish  Sir  Clarence's 
legitimacy.  And  the  worst  is  still  to  tell." 

"I  know  the  rest;  I  know  it  all!  Why 
didn't  you  say  all  this  to  me  at  first,  brother? 
You  have  been  harassing  yourself  with  the 
idea  that  because  you  couldn't  vindicate 

father,    Malmaison    might    be    claimed    by 
181 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

Richard  under  that  old  agreement  of  Sir 
Charles's  time." 

"  How  did  you  know— 

"  I  know  everything.  I  know  where  the 
papers  are  that  you  have  been  looking  for. 
Set  your  mind  at  rest,  Ned.  Sir  Clarence 
was  the  legitimate  heir.  There  was  also  a 
son  by  the  other  woman,  but  he  died  in  in 
fancy.  Ned,  why  weren  t  you  open  with 
me?  Richard  has  no  more  hold  on  our 
estates  than  my  groom  has.  Blame  him ! 
I  only  hope  he'll  think  otherwise!  We'll 
ruin  him  first  and  kill  him  afterward." 

"If  I  had  only  known  ..."  said  the  sick 
man,  after  a  pause.  "  But  you  are  certain? 
You  have  the  proof?  where  did  you  find  the 
papers?  " 

"  I  have  them.  Get  well,  and  you  shall 
know  all  about  it.  I  have  a  good  many 
curious  things  to  tell  you,  and  to  show  you, 
too." 

"Well,  God  be  thanked!  whatever  be 
comes  of  me.  It  is  late,  Archie,  but  I'm  be- 
182 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

ginning  to  get  acquainted  with  you  at  last. 
It  is  my  fault  that  I  did  not  know  you  before. 
You  are  better  fitted  to  bear  the  title  than  I." 

"  No.  If  I  thought  so,  I  would  not  deny 
it;  but  if  I  inherit  Malmaison,  our  family 
will — perish  off  the  earth !  I  can  foresee 
some  things,  Ned.  The  hope  of  the  house 
lies  in  you ;  I  shall  bring  only  calamity. 
You  must  get  well." 

Again  the  brothers  grasped  hands,  looked 
in  one  another's  eyes  for  a  moment  or  two, 
and  then  Archibald  went  out ;  the  day 
passed,  and  the  evening  fell.  At  midnight 
he  was  Sir  Archibald  of  Malmaison. 


183 


IT  was  not  long  before  the  new  baronet 
—the  last  of  his  line — began  to  make  his 
influence  felt.  His  temper  was  resolute, 
secret,  and  domineering;  he  bore  himself 
haughtily  among  the  neighboring  squires, 
never  seeking  to  please  a  friend  or  to  con 
ciliate  an  enemy.  Few  people  liked  him ; 
many  stood  in  awe  of  him.  He  seemed  to 
be  out  of  sympathy  with  his  race ;  his 
strange,  ambiguous  history  invested  him 
with  an  atmosphere  of  doubt  and  mystery ; 
his  nature  was  not  like  other  men's,  it  was 
even  whispered  that  he  had  powers  tran 
scending  those  of  ordinary  humanity.  It  is 
probable  that  his  remarkable  personal 
beauty,  which  in  moments  of  anger  or 
energy  gleamed  out  with  an  almost  satanic 

intensity,  may  have   lent  substance  to  this 
184 


ARCHIBALD    MALM  A I  SON. 

impression ;  men  shrunk  from  meeting  the 
stern  inquisition  of  his  black  eyes ,  and  for 
women  his  glance  possessed  a  sort  of  fasci 
nation  unconnected  with  his  beauty.  But 
there  were  other  indications  more  direct 
than  these.  A  century,  or  even  half  a  cen 
tury  previous  to  this  time,  vSir  Archibald 
might  have  found  it  difficult  to  avoid  the 
imputation  of  witchcraft.  After  all,  was 
not  he  the  descendant  of  his  forefathers? 
and  what  had  some  of  them  been?  Were 
there  not  people  in  the  neighboring  village 
of  Grinstead  who  were  willing  to  take  affi 
davit  that  the  handsome  young  baronet  had 
the  power  to  make  himself  invisible  when 
he  pleased?  Nay,  had  not  Mrs.  Pennroyal 
herself,  while  she  was  yet  a  young  maid, 
borne  testimony  to  the  fact — that  he  had 
suddenly  stood  before  her,  in  broad  day 
light,  in  a  room  which  had  the  instant  be 
fore  been  empty?  That  room  had  always 
had  a  queer  reputation ;  it  was  there,  or 

thereabouts,    that    most    of    these    strange 
'85 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

goings-on  took  place.  A  servant  who  had 
once  wandered  in.  there  to  announce  to  Sir 
Archibald  that  one  of  his  lawyers  had  ar 
rived  and  was  waiting  to  see  him,  had 
found  the  room  vacant,  though  he  had  seen 
his  master  enter  it  only  ten  minutes  before. 
Thinking  that  he  must  have  gone  out  by 
the  other  entrance,  through  the  stable,  he 
was  about  to  follow,  when  he  noticed  that 
this  door  was  bolted  on  the  inside.  In 
some  bewilderment  he  was  on  the  point  of 
retiring,  when  he  was  startled  by  a  burst  of 
laughter  which  continued  for  near  a  minute, 
and  which,  though  it  echoed  almost  in  his 
ears,  and  came  apparently  from  the  very 
air  round  about  him,  yet  sounded  faint  and 
unsubstantial  as  if  a  vast  distance  neverthe 
less  intervened.  Whether  near  or  far,  it 
was  unmistakably  the  laughter  of  Sir  Archi 
bald,  but  wilder  and  more  scornful  than 
had  ever  been  heard  from  his  lips.  The 
honest  footman  was  now  thoroughly  fright 
ened,  and  made  the  best  of  his  way  out  of 
186 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 


the  chamber ;  but  before  he  could  cross  the 
next  room  and  reach  the  passageway  be 
yond,  the  living  and  peremptory  tones  of 
Sir  Archibald  himself  overtook  him,  and 
brought  him  back  with  failing  knees  and 
pallid  cheeks  to  where  the  black-haired  bar 
onet  was  standing  in  the  doorway.  There 
he  stood  in  flesh 
and  blood,  but 
cloaked,  booted, 
and  spurred,  as 
if  just  returned 
from  a  journey. 

"  What  were 
you  doing  in 
this  room?  "  de- 
ma  n  d  c  d  the 
baronet. 

The  man  fal 
tered  out  his 
errand. 

"  Hear      this, 

once  for  all,  and 
187 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

remember  it,"  said  the  baronet,  nor  sternly 
nor  roughly,  but  with  a  concentration  of 
purpose  in  his  mellow  voice  that  seemed  to 
stamp  the  words  into  the  hearer's  soul. 
"  No  one  may  enter  this  chamber  except 
I  open  the  door.  Else  harm  may  happen 
which  I  could  not  prevent.  That  is  all. 
Now  send  Mr.  Mawgage  to  me." 

That  was  all,  but  it  was  quite  enough;  in 
fact,  the  difficulty  thereafter  was  to  induce 
any  one  to  venture  into  the  room  on  any 
terms.  It  was  believed  to  be  haunted,  and 
that  Sir  Archibald  was  either  himself  the 
ghost,  or  was  in  some  way  responsible  for 
there  being  one. 

I  have  mentioned  this  story,  to  which  the 
reader  already  possesses  the  clew,  only  by 
way  of  showing  that  Sir  Archibald  was 
making  use,  at  that  time,  of  the  secret 
which  he  had  discovered,  and  was  taking  the 
surest  means  of  keeping  it  to  himself.  He 
had  occupations  in  the  inner  chamber  at 

which    he    did    not    wish    to   be    disturbed. 
188 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

What  those  occupations  were  he  confided  to 
no  living  soul ;  indeed,  there  was  no  one  who 
could  have  served  him  as  a  confidant.  His 
life  was  a  lonely  one,  if  ever  a  lonely  life 
there  were.  Whom  had  he  to  love,  or  to 
love  him?  Even  his  mother,  now  enfeebled 
both  in  body  and  mind,  felt  fear  of  him 
rather  than  fondness  for  him.  She  spent 
much  of  her  time  playing  cards  with  her 
female  companion,  and  in  worrying  over 
the  health  of  her  pet  spaniels.  But  did  Sir 
Archibald  love  no  one?  At  all  events  he 
hated  somebody,  and  that  heartily.  He 
held  Richard  Pennroyal  responsible  for  all 
the  ills  that  had  fallen  upon  Malmaison  and 
upon  himself;  and  he  was  evidently  not 
the  man  to  suffer  a  grudge  to  go  unre 
quited. 

Pennroyal,  on  the  other  hand,  was  not 
disposed  to  wait  quietly  to  be  attacked ;  he 
came  out  to  meet  the  enemy  half  way.  In 
the  spring  of  the  year  1824 — about  nine 

months  after   Sir    Edward's    death — it  waf? 
189 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

known  in  every  mansion  and  public  house 
for  twenty  miles  round  that  a  great  lawsuit 
would  by  and  by  be  commenced  between 
Malmaison  and  Pennroyal,  the  question  to 
be  decided  being  nothing  less  than  the 
ownership  of  the  Malmaison  estates,  which 
Richard  Pennroyal  claimed,  in  the  alleged 
failure  of  any  legitimate  heir  of  Sir  John 
Malmaison,  deceased — the  father  of  Sir  Clar 
ence — but,  as  Pennroyal  alleged,  by  a  left- 
handed  marriage.  I  have  not  gone  into  the 
details  of  this  case,  and  should  not  detain 
the  reader  over  it  if  I  had;  he  may,  if  it 
pleases  him,  read  it  at  full  length  else 
where.  It  is  enough  to  observe  that  Penn 
royal  brought  forward  evidence  to  show  that 
he,  and  his  father  before  him,  had  always 
had  cognizance  of  the  will  or  other  docu 
ment  which  entitled  him  to  the  property  in 
dispute  in  the  event  provided  for;  and  had 
only  been  withheld  from  putting  in  their 
claim  thereto  by  the  repeated  and  solemn 

assurances    of    Sir    Clarence    that  no    such 
190 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

irregularity  as  was  suspected  regarding  his 
birth  had  in  fact  occurred.  Latterly,  how 
ever,  from  fresh  information  accidentally 
received,  it  appeared  that  Sir  Clarence  had 
either  been  guilty  of  a  wilful  and  criminal 
misstatement,  or  that  he  had  been  deceived. 
In  confirmation  whereof,  the  Honorable 
Richard  produced  documents  of  undoubted 
genuineness,  showing  that  an  illegitimate 
son  had  been  born  to  Sir  John ;  and  now 
called  upon  the  defendant  to  prove  that  this 
son  had  died  in  childhood,  or  that  he  had 
not  grown  up  to  be  Sir  Clarence ;  and  fur 
thermore,  having  disposed  of  this  diffi 
culty,  to  show  the  certificate  of  birth  of  a 
legitimate  heir  to  Sir  John  Malmaison,  and 
to  identify  that  heir  with  Sir  Clarence. 

Now,  there  were  certainly  some  awkward 
circumstances  in  respect  of  this  illegitimacy 
question.  Sir  Clarence  had  known  that  he 
had  had  a  brother  born  out  of  wedlock ;  and 
it  is  possible  he  also  knew  that  the  docu 
ments  relating  to  his  own  birth  were  not 
191 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

where  he  could  put  his  hands  upon  them. 
He  may  even  have  been  aware  that,  were 
his  title  to  be  challenged,  there  would  be 
serious  technical  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
vindicating  it.  At  the  same  time  Sir  Clar 
ence  was  entirely  and  justly  convinced  that 
his  title  was  good.  The  history  of  the 
illegitimate  son  was  familiar  to  him,  and  to 
the  rest  of  the  family,  in  all  its  details.  It 
was  not,  of  course,  an  ordinary  topic  of  con 
versation,  but  it  was  an  acknowledged  piece 
of  family  history.  Sir  John  had  been  wild 
in  his  youth,  and  had  made  a  good  many 
loose  connections  before  acceding  to  the 
baronetcy — his  father,  Sir  Charles,  the  same 
who  ate  the  venison  pasty,  having  lived  to 
see  his  heir  a  man  of  thirty.  One  of  these 
connections  had  been  with  the  daughter  of 
a  tenant;  during  its  progress  a  marriage 
had  been  arranged  between  John  Malmai- 
son  and  a  neighboring  heiress.  About  the 
time  that  the  marriage  took  place,  the  ten 
ant's  daughter  had  a  child;  Clarence  him- 
192 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

self  was  born  about  a  year  later.  The  child 
had  lived  five  or  six  years  only;  after  its 
death  its  mother  had  gone  tip  to  London, 
and  had  not  since  been  heard  of.  This  was 
all  simple  enough ;  the  only  trouble  being 
that  no  one  could  tell  what  had  become  of 
the  certificate  of  Clarence's  birth,  or  of  the 
other's  decease.  Consequently  there  was 
an  opening  for  an  evil-disposed  person  to 
assert  what  the  Honorable  Richard  was  now 
asserting. 

Where  had  the  Honorable  Richard  got 
his  information? — of  the  absence,  that  is  to 
say,  of  these  papers.  It  was  never  spoken 
of  outside  the  family.  It  is  only  proper  to 
observe  that  his  brother,  Lord  Epsom, 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  affair, 
but  explicitly  and  emphatically  washed  his 
hands  of  it.  But  this  did  not  deter  Rich 
ard  ;  he  had  got  his  materials,  he  had  de 
cided  upon  his  plan  of  action,  and  he  was 
bound  to  go  through  with  it.  lie  enter 
tained  no  doubts  of  his  success,  and  he 
13  J93 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

probably  anticipated  from  it  not  only  solid 
worldly  advantage,  but  the  gratification  of 
an  undisguised  enmity.  It  would  give  him 
peculiar  pleasure  to  augment  his  prosperity 
at  the  expense  of  Sir  Archibald  Malmai- 
son. 

Considering  that  the  outlook  was  so  bad 
for  him,  the  young  baronet  faced  it  with 
commendable  fortitude.  People  who  met 
him  regarded  him  with  curiosity,  expecting 
him  to  appear  disturbed,  if  not  desperate. 
But  he  wore  an  aspect  of  satisfied  compos 
ure,  tempered  only  by  his  habitual  haughti 
ness.  He  had  interviews  with  his  lawyers, 
seemed  neither  flurried  nor  helpless,  and 
altogether  behaved  as  if  his  victory  over  his 
opponent  was  placed  beyond  the  possibility 
of  a  doubt.  And  yet,  what  could  be  his  de 
fence?  Was  he  going  to  rely  upon  the  title 
having  remained  so  long  unquestioned? 
Did  he  build  his  hopes  upon  a  possible 
break  in  the  chain  of  Pennroyal's  evidence? 

The  onlookers  could  only  conjecture.     And 
194 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

now  the  time  when  conjectures  would  be 
exchanged  for  certainty  was  at  hand. 

It  was  the  autumn  of  the  year  1825.  One 
cool,  clear,  gray  afternoon  Sir  Archibald 
had  his  horse  saddled,  and  mounting  him, 
rode  out  upon  his  estate.  In  the  course  of 
an  hour  or  so  he  found  himself  approaching 
the  pond  which,  as  has  been  already  stated, 
lay  on  the  border-line  between  Malmaison 
and  the  lands  of  Richard  Pennroyal.  As 
he  drew  near  the  spot  he  saw  at  a  distance 
the  figure  of  a  woman,  also  on  horseback. 
It  was  Kate — Mrs.  Pennroyal.  She  was 
riding  slowly  in  a  direction  nearly  opposite 
to  his  own,  so  that  if  they  kept  on  they 
would  meet  on  the  borders  of  the  pond. 

Sir  Archibald  had  not  met  this  lady  for 
many  months ;  and  when  he  recognized 
her,  his  first  impulse  was  perhaps  to  draw 
rein.  Then  he  looked  to  see  whether  that 
were  her  impulse  likewise.  But  she  held 
on  her  course ;  and  he,  smiling  in  a  defiant 
way,  shook  his  bridle,  and  in  a  few  mo- 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

ments  they  were  but  half  a  dozen  yards 
apart.  There  they  paused,  as  it  seemed, 
by  mutual  consent. 

How  lovely  she  looked !  Sir  Archibald 
saw  it,  and  ground  his  teeth  with  a  kind  of 
silent  rage.  She  should  have  been  his. 

"Good-day,  Mrs.  Richard  Pennroyal!" 

"Good-day,  Archibald!" 

His  name,  coming  with  such  gentleness 
and  sweet  familiarity  from  her  lips,  made 
his  blood  tingle.  He  had  expected  coldness 
and  formality. 

"  I  had  not  looked  forward  to  the  honor 
of  meeting  you  here,"  he  said. 

"But  we  have  met  here  before,  I  think." 
And  so  they  had,  in  days  upon  which 
Archibald  now  looked  back  as  does  an  exile 
upon  home.  His  horse  moved  forward  a 
few  steps,  and  his  rider  only  stopped  him 
when  he  was  within  arm's  length. 

"  That  seems  long  ago ;  and  yet,  when  I 
look  at  you,  I  could  almost  believe  it  was 

but  yesterday." 

196 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

"You  have  changed  more  than  I,"  re 
plied  the  lady,  letting  her  eyes  rest  upon 
him  with  a  certain  intentness.  This  was 
true  enough,  physically  speaking ;  the  hand 
some  boy  was  now  a  superb  young  man ; 
but  Archibald  chose  to  interpret  her  words 
figuratively,  and  he  answered  bitterly : 

"  You  may  have  changed  little ;  but  that 
little  in  you  has  caused  whatever  change 
you  find  in  me." 

"  It  is  true,  then,  that  you  are  angry  with 
me?  I  had  hoped  otherwise,"  said  Mrs. 
Pennroyal  with  a  sad  dignity  that  sat  well 
upon  her. 

"  Angry  with  you !  "  broke  out  Archi 
bald,  his  face  flushing.  "  Has  it  been  a 
desire  to  keep  my — my  friendship  that  has 
caused  you  to 

Mrs.  Pennroyal  interrupted  him,  drawing 
herself  up  proudly.  "  Pardon  me,  sir,  I 
had  no  intention  of  forcing  your  good  will. 
If  you  will  be  my  enemy,  please  yourself, 

and  perhaps  I  may  learn  to  become  yours." 
197 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

And  she  turned  her  horse  as  she  spoke. 
But  Archibald,  thus  seemingly  put  in  the 
wrong,  and  unwilling  now  to  terminate 
the  interview  so  abruptly,  pressed  his  heel 
against  his  horse's  side,  and  was  again  be 
side  her. 

"You  misunderstand  me,"  said  he. 
"  What  could  I  think?  You  will  not  deny 
that  your — that  Richard  Pennroyal  has 
shown  himself  no  friend  of  mine." 

"  I  shall  deny  nothing  that  you  see  fit  to 
charge  against  me,  sir,"  rejoined  the  lady, 
still  hurt  and  indignant,  and  the  more  irre 
sistible. 

Archibald  reflected  that  she  was  not,  per 
haps,  justly  responsible  for  the  malevolence 
of  another  person,  even  though  that  person 
were  her  husband ;  and  from  this  thought 
to  thinking  that  she  might,  perhaps,  be  in 
clined  to  sympathize  against  her  husband  and 
with  himself,  was  an  easy  transition.  This 
perilous  fancy  made  his  pulses  throb  and  his 

eyes  gleam.     He  caught  her  horse's  bridle. 
198 


He  caught  her  horse's  bridle 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

"  Do  not  go  yet !  Let  us  talk  a  little, 
since  we  are  met." 

"  What  has  Sir  Archibald  Malmaison  to 
say  to  me?  " 

"You  called  me  '  Archibald  '  just  now." 

"You  called  me  '  Mrs.  Richard  Penn- 
royal  ' !  " 

"  Well — and  so  you  are !  "  said  he  be 
tween  his  teeth. 

"Do  you  think  of  me  by  that  name?" 
she  asked,  turning  her  brown  eyes  on  him 
for  a  moment,  and  then  looking  away. 

"Kate!" 

She  put  out  her  beautiful  hand,  and  he 
took  it  and  carried  it  to  his  lips.  Thoughts 
fierce  and  sweet  flew  through  his  mind. 
But  Mrs.  Pennroyal,  having  gained  her  im 
mediate  end  (which,  to  do  her  justice,  was 
probably  nothing  worse  than  the  gratifica 
tion  of  a  coquettish  whim),  knew  how  to 
take  care  of  herself.  She  drew  her  hand 
away. 

"  There — well — you  have  been  very  un- 
199 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

kind,  Archibald.  Have  we  not  been  friends 
—have  we  not  been  together  from  the  first? 
How  could  you  believe  that  I  could  wish 
you  any  harm?  " 

"Ah,  Kate,  but  you  married  him!  " 

"Well,  sir,  I  as  good  as  asked  you  to 
marry  me  first,  and  you  would  not  do 
it." 

"  You  asked  me !  " 

"Yes;  you  have  forgotten.  It  has  all 
been  so  strange,  you  see.  I  hardly  know, 
even  now,  whether  you  are  the  Archibald  I 
used  to  know." 

"But  I  know  very  well,"  returned  he 
grimly.  "  And  you  are  the  wife  of  my  ene 
my,  the  man  who  is  trying  to  ruin  me. 
Kate,"  he  broke  off  suddenly,  "how  did 
Richard  know  that  those  papers  were  miss 
ing  in  our  family?  I  told  you  once- — do 
you  remember  that  day?  And  no  one 
knew  it  except  you." 

Mrs.  Pennroyal  would  perhaps  have  pre 
ferred  not  to  be  asked  this  question.  But 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

since  it  was  asked,  she  was  bound  to  make 
the  best  answer  she  could. 

"  It  was  for  that  I  wanted  to  see  you  to 
day,"  she  said,  after  a  pause.  "  I  have  been 
to  blame,  Archibald,  but  it  was  ignorantly. 
It  was  long  ago — before  all  these  troubles 
began  to  occur :  while  we  were  yet  on  good 
terms.  Ah,  me !  would  we  were  so  again  !  " 

"You  told  him,  then?  " 

"  I  did  not  know  that  I  was  betraying  a 
secret.  From  what  Richard  said,  I  thought 
that  he  knew  it,  or  at  least  suspected  it ;  and  I 
merely  added  my  confirmation.  Afterward, 
when  I  found  how  things  were  going,  I 
begged  him  not  to  use  that  knowledge. 
But  it  was  too  late.  I  could  not  be  at  rest 
until  I  had  told  you,  and  asked  you  to  for 
give  me." 

Archibald  would  not  have  believed  this 
speech  if  his  head  only  had  been  concerned 
in  the  matter.  Unfortunately,  such  was  not 
the  case.  He  believed  it  because  he  ar 
dently  wished  to  do  so ;  and  he  forgave  her 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

the  more  easily  because  that  implied  having 
her  hand  in  his  again  for  a  few  moments. 

"  If  I  could  only  see  you  and  Richard  at 
peace  again,  I  should  be  happy,"  resumed 
Mrs.  Pennroyal  with  a  sigh. 

"  Is  it  for  him  you  fear,  or  for  me?  "  in 
quired  Archibald,  smiling. 

"The  danger  is  yours,"  she  answered 
diplomatically. 

He  shook  his  head,  still  smiling:  "Dis 
miss  your  anxiety,  Kate.  There  is  no  dan 
ger  for  me  or  mine.  Let  Richard  look  to 
himself!  " 

Mrs.  Pennroyal  was  startled.  She  had 
looked  upon  the  Malmaison  case  as  virtu 
ally  hopeless.  This  hint  of  the  contrary 
gave  her  a  strong  sensation  not  altogether 
unpleasurable.  Richard  was  her  husband, 
but  he  was  not  nearly  so  young  as  Archi 
bald  ;  and  as  to  looks — there  there  was  no 
comparison !  Archibald  was  simply  the  fi 
nest  man  in  England.  Perhaps  Mrs.  Penn 
royal  had  never  been  passionately  fond  of 

202 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

her  husband;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  she 
had  certainly  liked  Archibald  very  much. 
In  the  present  quarrel  she  had  felt  that  the 
propriety  of  being  on  the  winning  side  was 
not  diminished  by  the  fact  that  it  happened 
to  be  her  husband's;  but  if  it  should  turn 
out  that  her  husband's  was  not  the  winning 
side,  after  all — then  there  was  matter  for 
consideration.  Of  course,  strictly  speaking, 
her  husband's  misfortunes  must  be  her  own ; 
but  in  this  instance  the  nominal  misfortune 
would  be  his  failure  to  ruin  Archibald,  and 
Mrs.  Pennroyal  thought  she  could  sustain 
that.  No,  the  sensation  was  certainly  not 
unpleasurable.  But  was  it  certain  that 
Archibald  was  not  mistaken  ? 

"  I  am  very  glad,  for  both  our  sakes,"  said 
she  at  last.  "  I  could  never  have  endured 
to  take  your  name  and  estates  away  from 
you.  Then  that  notion  tnat  the  papers 
were  lost  was  a  mistake?  " 

"I  can   tell   you   nothing  more,"  replied 

Archibald,  looking  at  her. 
203 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

"Ah,  you  have  not  forgiven  me — you 
do  not  trust  me!  " 

He  checked  his  horse  and  hers,  and 
turned  full  upon  her:  "Kate,  you  are  the 
wife  of  my  enemy,  I  must  remember  that! 
If  I  found  you  playing  a  double  part  be 
tween  him  and  me,  I  should  hate  you  more 
than  I  hate  him ;  and  then  ...  I  should 
be  capable  of  any  crime.  Well,  I  will  not 
put  it  in  your  power.  You  will  know  all 
soon  enough.  Meantime,  I  trust  you  in 
this — to  keep  silence  on  what  I  have  said 
to-day.  Let  him  believe  that  he  will  suc 
ceed  until  he  knows  that  he  has  failed. 
Will  you  promise  that?  " 

Mrs.  Pennroyal  saw  no  harm  in  making 
this  promise,  but  she  did  not  .see  why  she 
should  not  make  as  great  a  favor  as  she  could 
of  granting  it. 

"  A  wife  should  have  no  secrets  from  her 
husband,  Archibald." 

"  Have  you  never  had  a  secret  from  him, 

Kate  ?  " 

204 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

"  You  have  no  right  to  ask  that!  " 

Archibald  laughed.  "  Are  you  as  happy 
with  him  as  the  day  is  long?  " 

She  looked  up  for  a  moment,  and  their 
eyes  met.  "  The  days  seem  very  long 
sometimes,"  she  said,  almost  beneath  her 
breath. 

"This  day?"  he  demanded,  bending  to 
ward  her. 

"Autumn  days  are  short,  you  know," 
she  said,  smiling  a  little,  with  averted  face. 

"  Do  you  often  ride  out  in  autumn?  " 

"  What  else  can  I  do,  when  my  husband 
is  away  from  home?  I  must  go  now — it  is 
late." 

"  And  your  promise?  " 

For  the  third  time  that  afternoon  she 
gave  him  her  hand.  Her  color  was  higher 
than  usual,  and  her  breathing  somewhat 
uneven.  She  had  not  passed  unscathed 
through  this  interview.  Archibald's  was 
the  stronger  spirit,  and  she  felt  his  power 

—felt  it,  and  liked  to  feel  it!     And  he,  as 

205 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

he  held  her  warm  and  delicate  hand  in  his 
own,  was  conscious  of  a  strange  tumult  in 
his  heart.  Was  fate,  which  he  had  hitherto 
found  so  adverse,  going  to  change  at  last, 
and  yield  him  everything  at  once — revenge 
and  love  in  the  same  breath?  A  revenge 
consummated  through  love  were  sweet  in 
deed. 

They  parted  at  length,  and  rode  away 
in  opposite  directions.  This  was  their  first 
meeting,  but  it  was  not  their  last  by  many. 


206 


XI. 

MEANWHILE  the  lawyers  were  keeping 
at  work  with  commendable  diligence,  and 
Mr.  Pennroyal  was  counting  his  chickens  as 
hatched,  and  was  as  far  as  possible  from 
suspecting  the  underplot  which  was  going 
on  around  him.  On  the  contrary,  it  seemed 
to  him  that  he  was  becoming  at  last  the  as 
sured  favorite  of  fortune.  For  this  gentle 
man's  life  had  not  been,  in  all  respects,  so 
prosperous  as  it  appeared.  To  begin  with, 
he  had  had  a  deplorable  weakness  for  di 
cing  and  card-playing,  which  had  frequently 
brought  him  in  large  sums,  but  which  had 
ended  by  costing  twenty  times  as  much  as 
they  had  won  for  him.  He  gave  up  these 
forms  of  diversion,  therefore,  and  resolved 
to  amass  a  fortune  in  a  more  regular  man 
ner.  He  studied  the  stock  market  pro 
207 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

foundly,  until  he  felt  himself  sufficiently 
master  of  the  situation,  and  then  he  entered 
the  lists  as  a  financier.  He  bought  and 
sold,  and  did  his  very  best  to  buy  cheap  and 
to  sell  dear.  He  made  several  lucky  hits ; 
but  in  the  long  run  he  found  that  the  bal 
ance  was  setting  steadily  against  him.  All 
his  ready  money  was  gone,  and  mortgages 
began  to  settle  down  like  birds  of  ill  omen 
upon  his  house  and  lands.  It  was  at 
this  period  that  he  married  Kate  Battle- 
down  ;  and  with  the  money  that  she  brought 
him  he  began  to  retrieve  his  losses,  and 
again  the  horizon  brightened.  Alas!  the 
improvement  was  only  temporary.  Ill  luck 
set  in  once  more,  and  more  inveterately 
than  ever.  Kate's  good  money  went  after 
his  bad  money,  and  neither  returned.  A 
good  deal  of  it  is  said  to  have  found  its  way 
into  the  pockets  of  Major  Bolingbroke,  his 
second  in  the  duel.  The  ill-omened  birds 
settled  down  once  more,  until  they  covered 

the  roof  and  disfigured  all  the  landscape. 
208 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

To  add  to  his  troubles,  he  did  not  find 
that  comfort  and  consolation  in  his  matri 
monial  relations  which  he  would  fain  have 
had.  It  is  true  that  he  married  his  wife 
first  of  all  for  her  money ;  but  he  was  far 
from  insensible  to  her  other  attractions, 
and,  so  far  from  wearying  of  them,  they 
took  a  stronger  and  stronger  hold  upon 
him,  until  this  cold,  sarcastic,  and  unsocial 
man  grew  to  be  nothing  less  than  uxorious. 
But  his  wife  recompensed  his  devotion  but 
shabbily ;  her  position  had  not  fulfilled  her 
anticipations,  she  was  angry  at  the  loss  of 
her  money,  and  upon  the  whole  she  re> 
pented  having  taken  an  irrevocable  step  too 
hastily.  She  felt  herself  to  be  the  intellec 
tual  equal  of  her  husband,  and  she  was  not 
long  in  improving  the  advantage  she  pos 
sessed  of  not  caring  anything  about  him. 
In  a  word,  she  bullied  the  unfortunate  gen 
tleman  unmercifully,  and  he  kissed  the  rod 
with  infatuation. 

This  state  of  things  was  in   force  up  t° 
14  209 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

the  time  of  Mrs.  Pennroyal's  meeting  with 
Archibald,  as  above  described.  After  that 
there  was  a  marked  and  most  enchanting  al 
teration  in  Mrs.  Pennroyal's  demeanor  to 
ward  her  husband.  She  became  all  at  once 
affectionate  and  sympathetic.  She  flattered 
him,  she  deferred  to  him,  she  consulted 
him,  and  drew  him  on  with  delicate  encour 
agements  to  consult  her,  to  confide  in  her 
all  the  private  details  of  his  affairs,  which 
he  had  never  done  before,  and  to  entrust 
to  her  safekeeping  every  inmost  fear  and 
aspiration  of  his  mind.  At  every  point 
she  met  him  with  soothing  agreement  and 
ingenuous  suggestion ;  and  in  particular 
did  she  echo  and  foster  his  enmity  against 
Sir  Archibald  Malmaison,  and  urged  him 
forward  in  his  suit,  bidding  him  spare  no 
expense,  since  success  was  assured,  and  af 
firming  her  readiness  to  mortgage  her  very 
jewels,  if  need  were,  to  pay  the  eminent 
legal  gentlemen  who  were  to  conduct  the 
case. 

210 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

This  behavior  of  hers  afforded  her  hus 
band  especial  gratification,  for  he  had  al 
ways  been  a  little  jealous  of  Sir  Archibald, 
and  indeed  one  of  the  impelling  motives  to 
the  present  action  had  been  a  desire  to  pay 
his  grudge  in  this  respect.  But  the  discov 
ery  that  Mrs.  Pennroyal  hated  the  young 
baronet  quite  as  much  as  he  did  filled  his 
soul  with  balm ;  so  that  it  only  needed  the 
successful  termination  of  the  lawsuit  to  ren 
der  his  bliss  complete  and  overflowing. 

Well,  the  great  case  came  on  ;  and  all  the 
nobility  and  gentry  of  the  three  counties, 
and  others  besides,  were  there  to  see  and 
hear.  There  were  bets  that  the  trial  would 
not  be  over  in  seven  days,  and  odds  were 
taken  against  its  lasting  seven  weeks.  So 
ciety  forgot  its  ennui  and  settled  itself  com 
placently  to  listen  to  a  piquant  story  of  scan 
dal,  intrigue,  imposition,  and  robbery  in 
high  life. 

The  reader  knows  the  sequel.  Never  was 
there  such  a  disappointment.  The  learned 

211 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

brethren  of  the  law  opened  their  mouths 
only  to  shut  them  again. 

For  after  the  famous  Mr.  Adolphus,  coun 
sel  for  the  plaintiff,  had  eloquently  and  in 
geniously  stated  his  case  and  given  a  pic 
turesque  and  appetizing  outline  of  the  evi 
dence  that  he  was  going  to  call,  and  the 
facts  that  he  was  going  to  prove ;  after 
this  preliminary  flourish  was  over,  behold, 
up  got  Mr.  Sergeant  Runnington,  who  ap 
peared  on  behalf  of  the  defendant,  and  let 
fall  some  remarks  which,  though  given  in 
a  sufficiently  matter-of-fact  and  every-day 
tone,  fell  like  a  thunder-clap  upon  the  ears 
of  all  present,  save  two  persons;  and  pro 
duced  upon  the  Honorable  Richard  Penn- 
royal  an  effect  as  if  ,a  hand-grenade  had 
been  let  off  within  his  head,  and  his  spine 
drawn  neatly  out  through  the  back  of  his 
neck. 

I  cannot  give  the  learned  Sergeant's 
speech  here,  but  the  upshot  of  it  was  that 
the  plaintiff  had  no  case;  inasmuch  as  he 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

relied,  to  make  good  his  claim,  on  the  ab 
sence  of  any  direct  evidence  establishing 
the  identity  of  the  late  Sir  Clarence  Butt 
Malmaison,  and  the  decease  of  that  illegiti 
mate  personage  whom  the  plaintiffs  sought 
to  confound  with  him. 

What  could  have  induced  the  plaintiff  to 
imagine  that  such  direct  evidence  was  not 
forthcoming,  Sergeant  Runnington  con 
fessed  himself  at  a  loss  to  understand.  He 
had  cherished  hopes,  for  the  sake  of  com 
mon  decency,  for  the  sake  of  the  respect 
due  to  the  Bench,  for  the  sake  of  human 
nature,  that  his  learned  brother  on  the  other 
side  would  have  been  able  to  hold  forth  a 
challenge  which  it  would  be,  in  some  de 
gree,  worth  his  while  to  answer;  he  re 
gretted  sincerely  to  say  that  those  hopes 
had  not  been  by  any  means  fulfilled. 

Had  he  been  previously  made  aware  of 
the  course  of  attack  which  the  plaintiff  had 
had  the  audacity  to  adopt,  he  could  have 

saved  him  and  other  persons  much  trouble, 
213 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

and  the  Court  some  hours  of  its  valuable 
time,  by  the  utterance  of  a  single  word,  or, 
indeed,  without  the  necessity  for  any  words 
at  all.  Really,  this  affair,  about  which  so 
much  noise  had  been  made,  was  so  ridicu 
lously  simple  and  empty  that  he  almost  felt 
inclined  to  apologize  to  the  Court  and  to  the 
gentlemen  of  the  jury  for  showing  them 
how  empty  and  simple  it  was.  But,  indeed, 
he  feared  that  the  apology,  if  there  was  to 
be  one,  was  not  due  from  his  side. 

It  was  not  for  him  to  decide  upon  the 
motives  which  had  prompted  the  plaintiff 
to  bring  this  action.  He  should  be  sorry 
to  charge  any  one  with  malice,  with  uncon 
scionable  greed,  with  treacherous  and  im 
pudent  rapacity.  It  belonged  to  the  plain 
tiff  to  explain  why  he  had  carried  this  case 
into  court,  and  what  were  his  grounds  for 
supposing  that  it  could  be  made  to  issue  to 
his  credit  and  advantage. 

For  his  own  part,  he  should  content  him 
self  with  producing  the  documents  which 
214 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

the  learned  counsel  on  the  other  side  had 
professed  himself  so  anxious  to  get  a  sight 
of,  and  to  humbly  request  that  the  plaintiff 
be  nonsuited  with  costs. 

Thus  ended  the  great  trial.  People 
could  hardly,  at  first,  believe  their  own  ears 
and  eyes ;  but  when  the  documents  were 
acknowledged  to  be  perfectly  genuine  and 
correct,  when  the  learned  Mr.  Adolphus  re 
linquished  the  case,  not  without  disgust, 
and  when  the  Court,  after  some  very  severe 
remarks  upon  the  conduct  of  the  plaintiff, 
had  concluded  a  short  address  by  adopting 
the  learned  Sergeant  Runnington's  sugges 
tion  as  to  the  costs — when  all  was  settled, 
in  short,  in  the  utterly  absurd  space  of  two 
hours  and  three-quarters,  then  at  last  did 
society  awake  to  a  perception  of  the  fact 
that  it  had  been  most  egregiously  and  out 
rageously  swindled,  and  that  the  Honorable 
Richard  Pennroyal  was  the  swindler. 

Nobody  was  at  the  pains  to  conceal  these 
sentiments  from  the  honorable  gentleman, 
2I5 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

and  he  left  the  court  with  as  little  sympa 
thy  as  ever  disappointed  suitor  had. 

Poor  man!  he  suffered  enough,  in  more 
ways  than  one,  on  that  disastrous  day,  yet 
one  shame  and  agony,  the  sharpest  of  all, 
was  spared  him — he  did  not  see  the  look 
and  the  smile  that  were  exchanged  between 
his  wife  and  Sir  Archibald  Malmaison, 
when  the  decision  of  the  Court  was  made 
known. 


2lf) 


XII. 

WE  are  now  drawing  near  the  last  scene 
of  this  strange  and  sinister  history.  The 
action  confines  itself  almost  entirely  to  the 
three  chief  figures. 

If  Pennrcyal  had  been  twenty  years 
younger  when  this  catastrophe  fell  upon 
him,  it  might  merely  have  had  the  effect  of 
enraging  him ;  but  he  was  near  fifty  years 
of  age,  and  old  for  his  years,  and  it  seems  to 
have  overwhelmed  and  cowed  him.  He  sat 
still  in  his  house,  like  a  rat  in  his  hole, 
saying  nothing  and  noticing  nothing,  but 
drinking  a  great  deal  of  brandy.  The  fiery 
stuff  did  not  excite  him ;  it  merely  had  the 
effect  of  keeping  him  from  sinking  into  un 
consciousness  of  his  misery.  He  knew  that 
he  was  a  ruined  man,  and  that  it  was  too 

late  to  retrieve  his  ruin.     Means  and  energy 
217 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

were  alike  lacking,  and  could  never  be  sup 
plied.  He  sat  in  his  chair  and  brooded 
over  all  his  life,  and  realized  the  utterness 
of  his  failure ;  and  nothing  could  rouse  him 
—not  even  the  intelligence  that  his  enemy, 
Sir  Archibald,  having  by  the  death  of  his 
aunt,  Miss  Tremount,  come  into  an  in 
heritance  of  upward  of  seventy  thousand 
pounds,  was  buying  up  the  mortgages,  and 
would  probably  foreclose  on  him  when  he 
got  him  thoroughly  in  his  power.  Archi 
bald  had  beaten  him,  and  he  would  fight 
no  more.  Let  him  enjoy  his  triumph,  and 
push  it  to  the  utmost.  There  was  one 
point,  at  all  events,  on  which  Richard  had 
the  better  of  him,  and  this  thought  brought 
with  it  the  sole  spark  of  comfort  that  these 
evil  days  afforded  him.  He  had  his  wife 
—the  woman  to  win  whom  Sir  Archibald 
would  have  given  all  his  lands  and  fortune, 
and  his  soul  into  the  bargain.  Yes,  Kate 
was  his,  and  his  only;  and  it  was  the  re 
solve  to  keep  her  his,  and  thus  spite  his 
218 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

enemy  as  long  as  possible,  that  withheld 
Richard  from  seeking  relief  in  suicide  at 
this  juncture.  So  Providence  leads  men 
from  agony  to  worse  agony,  with  intent, 
doubtless,  to  torture  out  of  them  the  evil 
•which  they  will  not  voluntarily  relinquish. 

One  winter  evening,  Richard  sitting 
brooding  and  sipping  brandy  as  usual,  with 
a  lamp  burning  on  the  table  beside  him, 
and  the  embers  of  the  fire  flickering  on  the 
broad  hearth  at  his  feet,  there  came  a  light, 
measured  step  and  the  rustle  of  a  dress,  and 
he  knew  that  his  wife  was  in  the  room. 
He  raised  his  haggard  visage  and  looked 
at  her.  What  a  goddess  of  beauty  she 
seemed!  How  young,  graceful,  lovely! 
How  pure  and  clear  were  the  tints  of  her 
face,  how  lustrous  dark  her  eyes,  how  soft 
her  ample  hair!  How  peerless  she  was! 
and  all  she  was — all  this  treasure  of  fra 
grant  womanhood — was  his,  and  not  anoth 
er's.  Ay,  and  his  willingly;  she  really 

loved  him,  he  thought;  she  had  shown  it  of 
219 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

late;  she  cared  for  him,  old,  ruined,  and 
degraded  though  he  was.  It  was  a  strange 
thing;  it  was  a  pleasant  thing.  Perhaps, 
he  thought,  if  he  had  had  such  a  creature  to 
love  him  in  earlier  days,  he  might  not  have 
been  where  he  was  now.  But  then  in  ear 
lier  days  he  was  not  a  ruined  and  wasted 
man. 

"Kate!" 

"Yes,  Richard." 

"Oh,  never  speak  so  formally!  Am  I 
not  Dick,  thy  own  dear  old  Dick — eh? "' 

"  I  did  not  mean  to  be  formal." 

"  Come  and  sit  here  beside  me — no,  here, 
on  the  arm  of  my  chair.  It  was  good  of 
you  to  come  in  here.  I  was  getting  lone 
some.  I  wanted  my  Kate  to  tell  me  she 
loved  me — eh?  " 

"  I  only  came  in  to  say  good-night.  It  is 
late." 

"Late?  —  pooh!  It's  not  nine  o'clock. 
Stay  and  be  sociable  a  bit.  There,  I  won't 
touch  another  drop  if  you'll  stay." 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

"I'm  tired;  I  have  a  headache.  You 
don't  want  me." 

"  Not  want  you !  Aye,  but  I  do  though ! 
Without  you,  Kate,  I  should  have  been  a 
dead  man  weeks  ago.  Not  want  you!  " 

"Nonsense!  what  do  you  mean?  You 
have  drunk  too  much  already,  I  fear." 

"  I  mean  that,  but  for  you,  I'd  have  blown 
my  brains  out  the  day  of  the  trial — after 
I'd  blown  out  his,  the  scoundrel !  But  since 
I  have  you,  I  know  a  way  to  worry  him 
better  than  by  blowing  his  brains  out. 
To  know  that  you  are  mine  is  hell  to 
him.  And  in  that  hell  I'll  keep  him  as 
long  as  my  body  and  soul  will  hang  to 
gether!  " 

"  What  should  he  care  whether  I  am 
yours  or  not?  " 

"  Because  he  loves  you — that's  why  he 
cares!  Aye,  you  needn't  start.  He  loves 
you,  and  it's  hell  to  him  to  feel  that  anoth 
er  man  has  you.  How  many  thousand 
pounds  do  you  think  he'd  give  to  kiss  this 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

little  hand  as  I  kiss  it  now?  I  wish  he 
could  sec  me  do  it!  " 

"  Nonsense,  you  are  crazy.  .  .  .  And  so 
you  only  care  for  me  to  spite  him?  " 

"  No,  not  that.  God  knows — if  there  is  a 
God — I  love  you,  Kate,  with  all  there  is  left 
of  me — except  what  hates  him!  That's 
my  life — love  for  you  and  hate  for  him. 
And  I  believe  I  hate  him  less  than  I  love 
you,  though  that's  saying  a  great  deal!  " 

"Oh,  I  think  you  love  that  brandy  better 
than  you  do  me!" 

"You  do?  If  you  say  so,  I'll  never  touch 
it  again !  " 

"Oh,  I  don't  care!  I  don't  want  you  to 
give  up  anything  that  makes  you  com 
fortable." 

"Aye,  you  do  love  me,  don't  you,  Kate?  " 

"  Come,  Richard,  our  courting  days  are 
over.  And  I  must  go.  Good-by!  " 

"No,  don't  go!  I  feel,  somehow,  as  if  1 
couldn't  spare  you  to-night." 

"Shall  I  pour  you  out  another  glass?  " 

222 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

"Yes — no!  I'll  drink  no  more  to-night. 
Kate  ..." 

"Well?" 

"  I'm  getting  old.  In  the  natural  course 
of  things  I  should  die  long  before  you.  I 
sha'n't  die  yet  a  while — but  some  time,  you 
know.  Will  you  promise  something?  " 

"I'll  promise  nothing  to-night.  I  dare 
say  you'll  outlive  me." 

"Promise,  come  what  will,  you'll  never 
marry  him;  eh,  Kate?" 

"  Really,  Richard,  I — I  never  heard  any 
thing  so  foolish!  I  can't  stay  to  hear  any 
more  such  talk.  You  are  not  your  right 
self.  There — let  me  go!" 

"Go? — go  where?  Gad,  I've  a  mind  to 
say  you  sha'n't  go!  Well,  yes,  I  didn't 
mean  it;  forgive  me,  Kate!  Only  you're 
my  wife,  you  know,  and  I'm  your  husband; 
and  I  love  you ;  and  somehow  I  feel  afraid 
to  let  you  out  of  my  sight — as  if  I  might  not 
see  you  again.  Well,  then.  .  .  .  But  one 
thing  you  shall  do — you  shall  give  me  a 


2  2 


3 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

kiss  before  you  go!  Else  you  sha'n't  go  at 
all!" 

Thus  compelled,  Mrs.  Pennroyal  kissed 
her  husband,  or  let  herself  be  kissed  by 
him ;  and  then  she  escaped  from  the  room 
with  a  shudder  and  a  sinking  of  the  heart. 

Richard  Pennroyal  sat  there  alone;  the 
embers  of  the  fire  were  now  gray  and  life 
less.  He  stirred  them  with  his  foot,  and 
they  fell  into  ashes.  He  felt  cold.  How 
still  the  house  was;  how  lonely!  And  he 
had  no  pleasant  thoughts  to  keep  him  com 
pany  now  that  his  wife  had  left  him ;  but 
many  thoughts,  many  memories  that  were 
far  from  pleasant  were  lying  in  wait  for 
him  in  the  dark  corners  of  his  mind,  ready 
to  leap  out  upon  him  if  he  gave  them  a 
chance.  Among  them,  why  did  the  foolish 
face  of  crazy  old  Jane,  his  wife  of  many 
years  ago,  persist  in  obtruding  itself? 
Why  did  it  wear  that  look  of  stupid,  unrea 
sonable  reproach?  yes,  unreasonable,  for 

how  was  he  to   blame?     He    had    but   let 
224 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

things  take  their  course;  no  more  than 
that  .  .  .  well,  scarcely  more!  And  yet 
that  face,  that  silly  old  face,  that  dull,  life 
less,  drowned  old  face,  kept  meeting  his  in 
the  dark  corners,  turn  where  he  would.  If 
he  closed  his  eyes,  it  was  still  visible 
through  the  eyelids,  and  seemed  nearer 
than  ever. 

So  he  opened  his  eyes;  and  there  hov 
ered  the  face,  in  the  gloom  beyond  the 
lamp.  What  an  expression !  Was  it  sig 
nalling  him  to  come  away?  Was  it  mock 
ing  him  for  fearing  to  come?  Fearing? 
He  was  not  afraid.  He  was  a  Pennroyal; 
he  had  noble  blood  in  his  veins — though  he 
was  now  a  bit  old  and  shaky,  and  had,  per 
haps,  been  taking  a  little  too  much  brandy 
of  late.  But  afraid! — not  he.  Why,  he 
would  follow  the  thing,  if  it  came  to  that; 
follow  it  to  .  .  . 

He  rose  slowly  from  his  chair,  still  keep 
ing  his  eyes  steadily  fixed  upon  it,  and 
moved  toward  it,  with  his  hands  out- 
T5  225 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 


-  ) 


stretched.  He  did  not  get  any  nearer  to 
it;  it  was  retreating  before  him,  like  a  will- 
o'-the-wisp.  He  kept  on,  crossing  the 
length  of  the  room;  it  seemed  to  pass 
through  the  substance  of  the  door  and  yet 
he  saw  it  beyond.  He  opened  the  door 
softly ;  yes,  there  it  was  in  the  hall.  A  pis 
tol  was  lying  on  the  little  table  beside  the 
door,  which  Richard  knew  to  be  loaded. 
Mechanically,  and  without  looking  at  it,  he 
took  it  up  as  he  passed.  Then  down  the 
hall  on  tiptoe,  the  shadowy,  unmeaning 
face  marshaling  him  the  way,  and  leering 

at  him  if  he 
hesitated. 
Ay  e  ,  he 
would  fol 
low  it  to  the 
end,  now. 
Fortunately 
the  house 
door  stood 


open; 
226 


there 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON, 

would  be  no  noise  in  getting  out.  Out  they 
glided,  pursuer  and  pursued,  into  the  cold 
stillness  of  the  night.  There  was  a  moon, 
but  it  was  dim  and  low  down.  The  shadows 
seemed  more  real  than  the  light.  There 
was  no  snow  to  betray  footprints.  But 
whither  would  this  chase  lead  ?  It  seemed  to 
be  heading  toward  the  northwest — toward 
Malmaison;  aye,  and  toward  the  pool  that 
lay  on  the  borders  of  the  estate.  Richard 
shuddered  when  he  thought  of  that  pool, 
and  of  the  grisly  significance  of  his  being 
led  thither  by  this  witless,  idiotic  old  phan 
tom  of  his  dead  wife's  face.  Stay,  the  face 
seemed  to  have  got  itself  a  body  within  the 
last  few  moments :  it  was  a  gray  figure  that 
now  flitted  on  before  him ;  gray  and  indis 
tinct  in  the  dim  moonlight,  with  noiseless, 
waving  drapery.  It  was  going  the  very 
path  that  old  Jane  had  gone  that  day,  many 
years  ago — her  last  day  on  earth ;  and  yet, 
was  she  not  here  again  to-night?  And  she 

was  leading  him  to  the  pool ;  and  what  then  ? 
227 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

Swiftly  she  flitted  onward,  some  seventy 
paces  in  advance  apparently,  now  lost  in 
shadow,  now  reappearing  in  the  light.  She 
never  turned  nor  beckoned,  but  'kept 
straight  on,  and  Richard  had  much  ado  to 
keep  pace  with  her.  At  length  he  caught 
the  gleam  of  the  dark  pool  some  little  dis 
tance  beyond.  He  set  his  teeth,  and  came 
on.  The  gray  phantom  had  paused  at  last. 
But  was  that  Jane,  after  all?  Not  Jane's 
was  that  tall  and  graceful  figure.  This 
must  be  some  other  woman's  ghost.  Was 
it  a  ghost?  And  if  so,  was  that  another — 
that  man  who  issued  from  behind  a  clump 
of  bushes,  and  came  toward  her?  The  two 
figures  met;  the  man  took  the  woman  in 
his  arms,  and  kissed  her  many  times  on 
the  lips  and  eyes.  Kisses! — aye,  those 
were  kisses  indeed !  Now  they  seemed 
to  be  conversing  together;  his  arms  were 
round  her  waist.  The  moonlight  re 
vealed  his  features;  it  was  the  enemy — 

it    was    Archibald     Malmaison !       And    the 
228 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON 

woman   was    not    the    dead   wife,    but    the 
living  one. 

"We  are  perfectly  safe,  my  darling," 
Archibald  was  saying.  "  The  room  was  all 
prepared  for  you,  and  there  is  no  possibility 
of  discovery.  There  will  be  a  great  outcry 
and  confusion  for  a  week  or  so,  and  they 
will  search  for  you,  dead  and  alive;  and  I 
along  with  the  rest,  the  better  to  disarm 
suspicion.  It  will  be  settled  at  last  that  you 
must  have  escaped  to  some  foreign  country ; 
or,  maybe,  Richard  himself  will  fall  under 
suspicion  of  having  made  away  with  you,  as 
he  did  with  his  first  wife.  Sooner  or  later,  at 
any  rate,  they  will  give  up  the  search ;  and, 
whether  or  not,  we  shall  always  be  free  to 
each  other.  You  could  not  persuade  any  one 
at  Malmaison  to  so  much  as  put  his  nose  into 
the  east  chamber;  and  as  to  the  other,  you 
and  I  are  the  only  living  creatures  who  even 
dream  of  its  existence.  Darling,  you  will 
not  mind  being  a  prisoner  for  a  little  while, 

since  love  will  be  a  prisoner  with  you?  " 
229 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

The  woman  clung  to  him  tremulously. 
"  I  did  not  know  it  would  be  so  hard  to 
leave  him,"  she  murmured.  "I  hate  him, 
and  yet  it  was  hard.  He  is  so  wretched ; 
and  he  is  all  alone.  What  will  he  do  now? 
He  kept  saying  that  he  loved  me  and  ask 
ing  me  to  love  him,  and  to  call  him  Dick, 
and  ...  he  made  me  kiss  him.  Oh, 
Archie,  I  feel  that  kiss  beneath  all  yours! 
I  shall  always  feel  it!  " 

"  No,  this  shall  make  you  forget  it — 

"  Hush — I  hear  something!  " 

"  You  are  nervous 

"Ah — look!  It  is  he!  Now  God  have 
mercy !  " 

Sir  Archibald  looked ;  and  there,  indeed, 
stood  the  tall  figure  of  the  Honorable 
Richard  Pennroyal,  without  his  hat,  and 
with  an  expression  on  his  face  that  was  a 
living  curse  to  behold.  And  yet  that  face 
smiled  and  bowed  with  a  hideous  polite 
ness. 

"Good-evening,     Sir     Archibald.      Will 
230 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

you  permit  me  to  inquire  whether  you  are 
armed?  " 

Sir  Archibald  put  his  hand  within  his 
vest  and  drew  out  a  pistol. 

"Ah,  that  comes  in  very  conveniently. 
Now,  let  us  see.  Mrs.  Pennroyal,  since  you 
are  my  wife,  perhaps  you  will  be  good 
enough  to  give  us  the  word? — No,  she  in 
sists  upon  fainting.  Well,  then,  we  must 
manage  the  best  way  we  can.  But  let  me 
entreat  you  to  take  your  aim  carefully,  my 
dear  Sir  Archibald,  for  if  you  miss  it  will 
involve  unpleasant  consequences  for  Mrs. 
Pennroyal  as  well  as  for  yourself.  Now 
I  will  toss  up  this  pebble,  and  when  it 
strikes  the  surface  of  the  water  we  will  fire. 
Is  it  agreed?  Here  goes,  then." 

He  had  the  pebble  in  his  hand,  and  was 
in  act  to  toss  it,  when  the  baronet,  break 
ing  silence  for  the  first  time,  said : 

"  Mr.  Pennroyal,  I  am  willing  that  this 
should  go  no  further." 

"  Scoundrel    and    coward !  "    snarled  the 

231 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

other,  his  deadly  fury  breaking  in  a  mo 
ment  through  the  thin  mockery  of  courtesy. 
"Come  up,  then,  and  be  shot  like  the  cur 
you  are ! " 

There  could  be  no  more  words.  Sir 
Archibald  raised  his  pistol ;  his  antagonist 
threw  the  pebble  high  in  the  air,  and  as 
it  smote  the  smooth  surface  of  the  pool  in 
its  descent,  both  pulled  trigger.  Richard 
Pennroyal's  weapon  missed  fire ;  Sir  Archi 
bald's  bullet  passed  through  his  enemy's 
heart;  he  swayed  backward  and  forward 


232 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

for  a  moment,  and  then  fell  on  his  face, 
hurling  his  pistol  as  he  fell  at  the  prostrate 
figure  of  his  wife,  who  lay  huddled  on  the 
ground;  but  it  flew  wide,  and  struck  Sir 
Archibald  on  the  temple.  Before  the  rip 
ples  caused  by  the  pebble's  fall  had  died 
away,  Pennroyal  had  ceased  to  live. 

Mrs.  Pennroyal  was  still  apparently  in 
sensible,  but  as  Sir  Archibald  approached 
her  she  partly  raised  herself  up  and  looked 
first  at  him  and  then  at  the  dead  body. 

"  It  was  not  worth  while,"  she  said. 

"  It's  done,"  he  murmured. 

"  Are  you  hurt?  " 

"What  shall  we  do?" 

"  We  must  get  back  to  Malmaison." 

"  We  can  not  leave  him  here." 

Sir  Archibald  bent  over  the  body  of  his 
enemy,  and  turned  the  face  upward.  It 
wore  a  calm  and  happy  expression. 

"  I  will  sink  him  in  the  pool,"  he  said. 
"  His  will  not  be  the  first  dead  body  that 

has  lain  there." 

233 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

He  stooped  accordingly,  and  getting  his 
hands  beneath  the  arms  of  the  corpse, 
dragged  it  to  one  of  the  flights  of  steps  that 
led  down  to  the  water.  Kate  sat  watching 
him  with  her  hands  clasped  in  her  lap.  She 
heard  a  splashing  sound  and  a  ripple.  Sir 
Archibald  came  back,  picked  up  the  pistol, 
and  flung  it  also  into  the  pool. 

"The  water  will  freeze  to-night,"  he  said, 
"and  the  fishes  will  do  the  rest.  Now, 
come !  " 

In  a  secret  chamber  at  Malmaison  lamps 
were  burning  softly  in  a  dozen  sconces  of 
burnished  silver  round  the  walls.  Their 
light  fell  on  luxurious  furniture,  fit  for  the 
boudoir  of  a  lovely  and  noble  lady.  The 
broad-backed  ebony  chairs  were  upholstered 
in  delicate  blue  damask ;  cups  and  salvers 
of  chased  gold  stood  on  the  inlaid  cabinet ; 
the  floor  was  covered  with  richly  tinted  Per 
sian  rugs  and  soft-dressed  furs ;  a  warm  fire 
glowed  on  the  hearth,  and  upon  the  table 

was  set  out  a  supper  such  as  might  have 
234 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

awakened  an  appetite  in  a  Roman  epicure. 
A  tall  mirror,  at  the  farther  end  of  the 
room,  reflected  back  the  lights  and  the 
color  and  the  sparkle,  while  in  a  niche  at 
one  side  stood  rigidly  upright  an  antique 
suit  of  armor,  its  gauntlets  seeming  to  rest 
meditatively  upon  the  hilt  of  its  sword, 
while  from  between  the  closed  bars  of  the 
helmet  one  might  fancy  that  the  dark  spirit 
of  its  former  inmate  was  gazing  grimly 
forth  upon  all  this  splendor  and  luxury, 
and  passing  a  ghastly  jest  thereon.  But  it 
was  as  fair  and  comfortable  a  scene  as  per 
haps  this  world  can  show,  and  well  calcu 
lated  to  make  the  sternest  ascetic  in  love 
with  life. 

Through  the  massive  oaken  door, 
clamped  with  polished  steel  bands,  entered 
now  two  pallid  and  haggard  persons — a 
man  and  a  woman.  The  light  striking  on 
their  eyes  made  them  blink  and  look  aside. 
The  man  led  the  woman  to  the  fire,  and 
seated  her  upon  a  low  chair;  and  taking 
235 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

a  blue  satin  coverlid  from  the  bed  in  the 
recess,  he  folded  it  tenderly  round  her 
shoulders.  She  scarcely  seemed  to  notice 
where  she  was,  or  what  was  being  done ; 
she  sat  with  her  eyes  and  face  fixed,  shiv 
ering  now  and  then,  and  with  her  mind  ap 
parently  preoccupied  with  some  ugly  recol 
lection.  The  man  then  went  to  the  table 
and  poured  out  a  glass  of  wine,  and  held  it 
to  the  woman's  lips,  and  after  a  little  resist 
ance  she  drank  some  of  it. 

"You  are  as  safe  here,"  said  he,  "as  if 
you  were  in  an  island  of  the  North  Sea.  I 
will  see  that  you  want  for  nothing  while 
you  have  to  remain  here." 

"What  is  the  use?"  she  asked  with  a 
kind  of  apathetic  peevishness. 

"  Before  long  we  shall  be  able  to  go 
away,"  he  continued.  "My  darling,  don't 
be  disheartened.  All  our  happiness  is  to 
come." 

"I  can  never  forget  it,"  she  said  with  a 

shiver.     "What  is  the   use?     I   can  never 
236 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

get  away  from  him  now.  Do  you  think  the 
water  is  frozen  yet?  " 

"You  must  not  think  of  that  at  all 
When  you  are  warm,  and  have  drunk  some 
wine,  you  will  not  feel  this  nervousness. 
Nothing  has  been  done  that  is  worth  re 
gretting,  or  that  could  have  been  helped. 
Kate,  I  love  you  more  than  ever." 

"What  is  the  use?"  she  repeated  in  a 
dull  tone.  "  It  was  not  worth  while." 

There  was  a  pause. 

"  I  must  leave  you  for  a  few  minutes,"  he 
said  gently.  "  It  is  necessary  that  I  should 
show  myself  to  Lady  Malmaison  and  to 
the  servants.  No  one  knows  that  I  have 
left  the  house.  By  the  time  I  come  back  you 
will  have  got  warm,  and  we  will  sup  together. 
Don't  be  down-hearted,  my  darling." 

He  bent  forward  to  kiss  her.  With  a 
sudden  gesture  of  aversion  she  pushed  him 
back.  "There  is  blood  upon  your  fore 
head  !  "  she  said  in  a  sharp  whisper. 

"Only  a  scratch — I  had  forgotten  it,"  he 
237 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

answered,  trying  to  smile.  "Well,  then, 
in  half  an  hour,  at  the  utmost,  we  will  meet 
again." 

She  made  no  rejoinder;  and  after  stand 
ing  a  moment  looking  down  at  her,  he 
turned  and  went  out.  He  closed  the  oaken 
door  behind  him,  and  locked  it,  then  felt 
his  way  along  the  stone  passage,  and  let 
himself  out  by  the  concealed  entrance.  He 
put  the  silver  rod  in  its  receptacle  beneath 
the  floor,  and  walked  toward  the  room  ad 
joining.  On  the  threshold  of  that  room  he 
paused  a  moment,  leaning  against  the 
door-post.  A  sensation  of  sluggish  weari 
ness  had  come  over  him ;  his  head  felt  full 
and  heavy.  He  roused  himself  presently, 
and  went  on  trying  to  remember  whither  he 
was  going.  By  the  time  he  had  reached 
the  top  of  the  great  staircase,  the  idea  that 
he  was  in  search  of  seemed  to  have  come  to 
him.  He  descended  the  stairs  and  went 
directly  to  Lady  Malmaison's  room.  It  was 

then  about  eleven  o'clock.     The  good  lady 
238 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

was  playing  cards  with  her  companion,  her 
spaniel  sleeping  on  her  knees.  She  looked 
up  in  astonishment,  for  Sir  Archibald  sel 
dom  honored  her  with  a  visit. 

"  Mama, "  said  he, going  up  to  her  chair, and 
standing  there  awkwardly,  "  where  is  Kate  ?  " 

"  My  son  !  what  has  happened?  " 

"  Was  she  married  to-day?  "  pursued  the 
baronet  in  an  aggrieved  tone. 

Lady  Malmaison  and  the  companion  ex 
changed  a  terrified  glance. 

"I  think  it  is  very  unkind,  then,"  de 
clared  the  young  man  reproachfully;  "for 
Richard  promised  me  I  should  be  grooms 
man — and  now  they  have  gone  and  got 
married  while  I  was  asleep.  It  was  unkind 
of  Kate,  and  I  don't  love  her;  but  I  don't 
believe  it  was  Richard's  fault,  because  he  is 
good,  and  I  love  him." 

"  Ring  the  bell,  Simpson,"  said  Lady  Mal 
maison  in  a  broken  voice,  "  and  tell  them  to 

send  for  Dr.  Rollinson." 
239 


XIII. 

DURING  all  the  months  of  consternation, 
speculation,  and  vague  hue  and  cry  that 
followed  the  mysterious  disappearance  of 
the  Honorable  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Pennroyal,  it 
never  for  one  moment  occurred  to  any  one 
to  suggest  any  connection  between  that 
unexplained  circumstance  and  the  equally 
curious  but  unpertinent  fact  that  poor 
Sir  Archibald  had  "gone  daft"  once  more. 
How  should  it?  It  was  known  that  Sir 
Archibald  had  been  in  his  room  all  that  day 
and  evening  up  to  the  time  when  he  came 
into  his  mother's  chamber  without  his  wits. 
It  was  true  that  there  had  been  no  love  lost 
of  late  between  the  houses  of  Malmaison 
and  Pennroyal,  but  that  was  neither  here 
nor  there. 

The  notion  that  the  vanished  persons  had 
240 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

met  with  foul  play  was  never  seriously  en 
tertained,  it  being  generally  agreed  that 
Mr.  Pennroyal  had  ample  reasons  for  not 
wishing  to  remain  in  a  place  where  his 
credit  and  his  welcome  were  alike  worn  out. 
In  all  likelihood,  therefore,  the  pair  had 
slunk  away  to  foreign  parts,  and  were  liv 
ing  under  an  assumed  name  somewhere  on 
the  Continent,  or  in  America. 

It  was  not  surprising  that  they  had  gone 
together,  for  it  was  known  that  they  were 
on  very  good  terms  with  each  other,  espe 
cially  during  the  last  year.  An  idle  story 
of  a  groom,  who  affirmed  that  he  had  been 
present  at  an  interview  between  Mrs.  Penn 
royal  and  Sir  Archibald,  on  horseback,  a 
few  weeks  before  the  trial,  when,  according 
to  this  narrator,  they  had  appeared  to  be 
rather  friendly  than  otherwise,  was  not 
thought  to  be  in  any  way  to  the  point. 

So  the  months  passed  away,  and  the  years 
followed  the  months;  the  house  and  the 

lands  of  the  Pennroyals  were  sold,  and  their 
16  241 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

very  name  began  to  be  forgotten.  The  daft 
baronet  and  his  aged  mother  went  on  living 
at  Malmaison  in  a  quiet  and  uneventful 
manner,  seeing  very  few  people,  and  doing 
nothing  except  allow  their  large  property  to 
grow  larger.  Yet,  in  spite  of  their  retiring 
inoffensiveness,  a  shadow  seemed  to  brood 
over  the  ancient  house. 

The  old  story  of  Sir  Archibald's  past  ex 
ploits  in  the  magical  line,  and  of  his  ances 
tors  before  him,  were  still  revived  occasion 
ally  round  evening  firesides;  and  it  was 
submitted  whether  his  present  condition 
were  not  a  judgment  upon  him  for  having 
tampered  with  forbidden  mysteries. 

In  the  opinion  of  these  fireside  juries, 
there  was  a  curse  upon  Malmaison,  espe 
cially  upon  that  part  of  it  which  contained 
the  east  chamber.  That  room  was  haunted, 
and  had  never  been  haunted  so  badly  as 
during  the  few  days  immediately  following 
Sir  Archibald's  loss  of  memory. 

It  may  have  been  a  demon's  carousal  over 

242 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

the  sad  plight  of  the  poor,  foolish  young 
baronet.  At  all  events  shrieks  had  been 
heard,  faint  and  muffled,  but  unmistakable, 
proceeding  from  that  region,  when  every 
body  knew  that  no  living  soul  was  there  or 
could  be  there ;  but  all  the  servants  at  Mal- 
maison  could  swear  to  the  sounds.  Aye,  the 
place  was  accursed. 

Late  on  the  night  of  the  22d  of  January, 
1833,  Sir  Archibald  found  himself  mount 
ing  the  staircase  of  Malmaison,  with  but  an 
indistinct  idea  of  how  he  came  to  be  doing 
so.  He  could  not  recollect  whether  he  had 
seen  his  mother  and  the  servants  or  not. 
No  wonder  if  his  thoughts  had  been  a  little 
absent,  with  such  a  dark  and  burdensome 
secret  as  that  which  lay  upon  his  soul. 
But,  of  course,  he  must  have  seen  them. 
He  had  left  Kate  with  the  intention  of  do 
ing  so,  within  this  very  hour;  and  how 
should  he  be  coming  upstairs,  unless  from 
the  execution  of  that  purpose?  His  mind 
243 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

was  busy  with  many  projects.  It  would 
probably  be  thought  that  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Pennroyal  had  left  the  country  to  escape 
creditors.  If  only  the  pond  froze,  and  the 
cold  weather  held  on  for  a  week  or  two, 
there  would  be  no  trace  that  could  lead  to 
a  suspicion  of  anything  else.  For  himself, 
he  would  find  no  difficulty  in  proving  an 
alibi,  if  it  came  to  that.  And  after  all,  he 
had  but  acted  upon  compulsion,  and  in  self- 
defense,  and  upon  equal  terms.  He  was 
guilty  of  no  crime,  except — well,  call  it  a 
crime;  he  was  willing  to  bear  the  brunt  of 
that.  So  they  would  be  able  to  get  away 
soon,  and  in  Italy,  Spain,  somewhere,  any 
where,  they  could  live  and  be  happy  many 
years.  Perhaps  after  a  time  they  could 
venture  to  marry  and  return  openly  to  Eng 
land.  There  were  numberless  and  indefi 
nite  possibilities  in  their  favor.  Life  was 
all  they  wanted,  and  life  they  had.  They 
were  both  young;  the  gloom  of  this  un 
lucky  tragedy  would  soon  be  dispelled. 
244 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

Kate  had  been  nervous  and  distraught 
when  he  left  her — and  no  wonder,  poor 
love!  But  wine,  and  food,  and  warmth 
would  soon  bring  the  color  back  to  her 
cheeks  and  the  light  to  her  eyes.  Lovely 
Kate!  sweet,  wayward,  tender,  haughty, 
but  his  own  at  last — his  own  in  spite  of 
earth  and  heaven !  Yes,  he  and  she  would 
have  their  will  and  take  their  pleasure  in 
spite  of  God  and  man;  and  if  God  would 
kill  them,  then  at  any  rate  they  would  die 
together  and  in  each  other's  arms. 

With  these  and  many  like  thoughts  flying 
through  his  mind,  Sir  Archibald  Malmaison 
reached  the  east  chamber,  struck  a  light, 
and  lit  the  candle  that  stood  on  the  table 
beside  the  door.  He  looked  at  his  watch— 
half-past  eleven ;  he  was  within  his  time, 
then ;  he  had  been  absent  less  than  half  an 
hour.  What  was  Kate  doing?  he  won 
dered.  He  stopped  a  moment,  picturing 
her  to  himself  in  some  luxurious  attitude ; 
but  his  impatience  would  not  suffer  him  to 
245 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

delay.  He  quickly  got  the  silver  rod  from 
its  receptacle,  opened  the  concealed  door, 
and  went  in,  carrying  the  lighted  candle  in 
his  hand.  In  a  moment  he  was  at  the  in 
ner  oaken  door;  it  resisted  his  attempt  to 
open  it.  Then  he  recollected  that  he  had 
locked  it  for  additional  security.  The  key 
was  in  the  lock;  he  turned  it,  and  entered. 

An  involuntary  cry  of  surprise  escaped 
him.  Instead  of  the  soft  blaze  of  light  that 
he  had  expected,  the  room  was  full  of  a 
heavy  darkness  that  seemed  to  rush  out 
to  meet  him,  and  almost  overwhelmed  the 
feeble  glimmer  of  his  wretched  candle. 
And  why  was  it  so  deadly  cold?  Where 
had  gone  that  cheerful  fire  which  was  burn 
ing  so  ardently  on  the  hearth  half  an  hour 
ago?  Could  Kate  have  put  out  the  lights 
and  gone  off?  Impossible,  since  the  doors 
were  fastened.  Ah,  there  she  was! 

She  was  kneeling  with  her  face  bowed 
forward  on  her  arms,  which  rested  on  the 

seat  of  one  of  the  low  chairs.     Her  attitude 
246 


She  was  kneeling  with  her  face  bowed  forward  on  her  arms 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON 

was  that  of  passionate  prayer.  Her  thick 
brown  hair  was  unfastened,  and  fell  over 
her  shoulders. 

She  made  no  movement.  It  was  strange ! 
Was  she  praying?  Could  she  be  asleep? 

He  took  a  step  or  two,  and  then  stopped. 
Still  no  movement. 

"Kate!"  he  said  in  a  hushed  voice;  and 
as  she  did  not  answer,  he  spoke  more  loud 
ly:  "Kate,  I  have  come  back,  and  I've  a 
mind  to  scold  you  for  letting  the  fire  go  out, 
and  startling  me  with  this  darkness.  What 
are  you  doing  on  your  knees?  Come,  my 
darling,  we  want  no  prayers  to-night. 
Kate  .  .  .  will  you  give  me  a  kiss  now  ? 

"  Perhaps  she  may  have  fainted.  Poor 
darling,  she  must  have  fainted!  " 

He  went  close  up  to  her,  and  laid  his 
hand  on  her  shoulder;  he  seemed  to  grasp 
nothing  but  the  empty  stuff  of  the  dress. 
With  a  terrified,  convulsive  motion,  he 
pulled  her  round,  so  that  the  head  was  dis 
turbed  from  its  position  on  the  arms,  and 
247 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

the  ghastly  mystery  was  revealed  to  his 
starting  eyeballs.  The  spectacle  was  not 
one  to  be  described.  He  tittered  a  weak, 
wavering  scream,  and  stood  there,  unable 
to  turn  away  his  gaze. 

I  must  confess  that  I  do  not  care  to  pur 
sue  this  narrative  any  farther;  though  it  is 
just  at  this  point,  according  to  my  venerable 
friend  Dr.  Rollinson,  that  the  real  scientific 
interest  begins.  He  was  constantly  with 
Sir  Archibald  during  the  eight  or  nine 
months  that  he  remained  in  life  after  this 
episode ;  and  made  some  highly  important 
and  edifying  notes  on  his  "case,"  besides 
writing  down  the  unhappy  baronet's  con 
fessions,  as  given  from  time  to  time.  After 
his  death  the  doctor  made  an  autopsy  of  the 
brain,  and  discovered — I  care  not  what!  It 
was  not  the  mystery  of  the  man's  soul,  I  am 
convinced. 

I    have    adhered     strictly    to    the     facts 

throughout.     Of  course  some  of  the  conver- 
248 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

sations  have  been  imagined,  but  always  on 
an  adequate  foundation  of  truth  or  logical 
inference.  All  the  dates  and  "  coinci 
dences  "  are  genuine.  But,  indeed,  I  pre 
fer  fiction,  and  am  resolved  never  in  future 
to  make  an  excursion  into  the  crude  and 
improbable  regions  of  reality. 


THE    END. 


249 


A  SIDE  ENTIRELY  FROM 
/  V  THE  DRAMATIC  AND 
LITERARY  CHARM  OF 
"ARCHIBALD  MALMAISON," 
IS  THE  SCIENTIFIC  INTER 
EST  WHICH  ATTACHES  TO 
THE  STRANGE  MENTAL 
CONDITIONS  OF  THE  HERO. 
IN  THIS  CONNECTION  THE 
FOLLOWING  OPINIONS  OF 
EXPERTS  ON  BRAIN  DIS 
EASES  WILL  ENHANCE 
THE  READER'S  INTEREST. 


OPINIONS  OF   MEDICAL   EXPERTS 


JULIAN    HAWTHORNE'S    STORY   OF   "ARCHI 
BALD    MALMAISON." 


FROM  JAMES  G.  KIERNAN,  M.D.,  FOREIGN  ASSOCIATE 
MEMBER  OF  THE  FRENCH  MEDICO-PSYCHOLOGIC  ASSO 
CIATION  ;  FELLOW  OF  THE  CHICAGO  ACADEMY  OF 
MEDICINE  ;  PROFESSOR  OF  FORENSIC  PSYCHIATRY, 
KENT  COLLEGE  OF  LAW  ;  FORMERLY  PROFESSOR  OF 
MENTAL  AND  NERVOUS  DISEASE,  MILWAUKEE  MEDICAL 
COLLEGE. 

The  mental  condition  on  which  Julian  Hawthorne's 
story  of  "  Archibald  Malmaison  "  is  based  is  one  fully  rec 
ognized  by  alienists  as  "double  consciousness."  This 
condition  is  an  expression  of  several  different  mental 
disorders.  It  may  be  an  outcome  of  degeneracy  in  the 
direction  of  what  is  called  circular  insanity  or,  techni 
cally,  cyclothymia.  It  may  be  an  expression  of  the  un 
stable  mental  state  of  degeneracy  where  from  the  lack 
of  balance  varied  conditions  of  mind  occur  Finally,  it 
may  be  an  expression  of  epileptic  mentality.  In  dis 
cussing  the  career  of  Archibald  Malmaison  as  des 
cribed,  the  fact  has  to  be  remembered  that  the  novelist 
deals  (and  must  deal,)  with  mental  disorder  as  an  im 
pressionist  rather  than  a  clinician.  This  is  the  case 
253 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

even  with  such  rigid  realists  as  Zola.  The  impression 
ist  view  naturally  subordinates  clinical  features  of  sig 
nificance  to  the  alienist,  but  of  seeming  unimportance 
to  the  general  public.  It  must  also  be  remembered  that 
the  novelist  has  the  further  task  of  causing  his  impres 
sions  to  appear  through  the  minds  of  his  healthy  charac 
ters.  These,  of  course,  have  to  be  modified  to  suit  the 
age  and  environment  in  which  they  live.  In  some  in 
stances  this  creates  an  undue  atmosphere  of  mysticism. 
This  is  the  case  in  both  George  Sand's  "Consuelo"  and 
Maurice  Sand's  "Callirhoe, "  which  are  based  on  a  re 
ported  case  of  epileptic  "double  consciousness,"  with 
delusions  of  memory  of  the  morbid  period,  as  a  fact. 
This  undue  mysticism  does  not  pervade  "Archibald 
Malmaison,"  where  enough  clinical  facts  are  given  to 
indicate  the  type  of  double  consciousness  which  is  pre 
sented.  Because  of  the  long  period  elapsing  between 
the  more  morbid  mental  states,  because  likewise  of  the 
uusimilarity  of  the  tone  of  these  when  they  recur,  circu 
lar  insanity  would  have  to  be  excluded  from  considera 
tion. 

There  then  remain  the  degenerative  mental  states  and 
the  epileptic.  There  is  sufficient  mental  and  physi 
cal  evidence  in  the  mouth  of  the  hero  to  show  that  he 
was  a  degenerate.  There  are,  however,  incidents  like 
the  hiding  of  the  silver  rod  and  the  slight  epileptic  attack 
which  occurs  to  indicate  that  the  degeneracy  has  given 
rise  to  an  epileptic  mental  state  In  this  condition  very 
complicated  acts  are  performed,  of  which  the  subject 
does  not  retain  consciousness  or  remembrance  until  the 
next  recurrence.  The  fact  indicated,  that  there  were 
during  the  more  morbid  mental  period  comparatively 
normal  states,  points  in  the  epileptic  direction.  Taken 
as  a  whole,  therefore,  the  character  may  be  regarded  as 
an  impressionist  description,  by  a  novelist,  of  a  mentally 
254 


OPINIONS    OF    MEDICAL    EXPERTS. 

unstable  degenerate  who  has  irregularly  recurrent 
periods  of  epileptic  mental  disorder.  The  fact  should 
be  remembered  in  this  connection  that  the  less  of  the  fit 
the  more  of  the  mental  disorder  will  occur.  The  double 
consciousness  of  the  circular  insanity  type  is  not  so  ob 
viously  indicated  here  as  in  "Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde," 
where  the  description  (with  the  exception  of  the  occultly 
potent  drink)  might  have  been  taken  out  of  an  insane 
hospital  case  book,  The  epileptic  element  is  not  so 
prominent  as  in  "Miss  Mordeck's  Father."  or  in  one  of 
Luska's  stories.  In  these  the  epileptic  mental  state  is 
completely  dominant.  The  epilepsy,  however,  insid 
iously  tinges  the  degeneracy  more  than  it  does  the  men 
tal  state  of  Shakespeare's  "Othello  "  (Act  IV. ,  Scene  I.)  : 

IAGO  "My  Lord  is  fallen  into  an  epilepsy.  This  is 
his  second  fit ;  he  had  one  yesterday.  " 

CASSIO.     "Rub  him  about  the  temples." 

IAGO.  "No,  forbear.  The  lethargy  must  have  his 
quiet  course.  If  not,  he  foams  at  mouth,  and  by  and  by 
breaks  out  to  savage  madness." 

In  addition  to  the  more  permanent  conditions  of 
double  consciousness  there  are  temporary  confusional 
states  during  which  a  man  may  lose,  during  a  long 
period,  his  proper  self-consciousness  and  accept  a  career 
and  a  name  from  what  is  practically  hypnotic  suggestion. 
Thereafter  he  suddenly  awakens  to  his  real  condition. 
An  excellent  case  of  this  kind  is  described  in  Charles 
Reade's  "Simpleton."  This  might  have  been  taken 
from  an  actual  case  described  in  Wharton  and  Stille's 
"Medical  Jurisprudence."  Such  cases  are  exceedingly 
frequent. 

There  is  hence  considerable  foundation  from  many 
psychiatric  standpoints  for  the  character  of  Archibald 
Malmatson.  JAMES  G.  KIERNAN,  M.D. 

CHICAGO,  ILL.,  October  12,  1899. 
2S5 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 


FROM  WILLIAM  A.  HAMMOND.  M.D.,  SURGEON  GENERAL 
(RETIRED)  OF  UNITED  STATES  ARMY;  PROFESSOR  IN 
NEW  YORK  AND  BALTIMORE  MEDICAL  COLLEGES  OF 
DISEASES  OF  THE  MIND  AND  NERVOUS  SYSTEM. 

I  read  "Archibald  Malmaison  "  with  great  pleasure  on 
its  first  appearance  several  years  ago  I  regarded  it 
then  as  one  of  the  most  original  novels  in  our  language, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  one  of  the  most  interesting  and 
forceful  On  its  second  perusal  my  opinion  of  its  merits 
is  strengthened. 

It  is  based  on  the  curious  condition  of  "double  con 
sciousness,"  many  striking  examples  of  which  have 
come  under  my  personal  observation.  I  especially  re 
call  one  of  a  gentleman  of  New  York  who,  in  conse 
quence  of  a  blow  on  the  head,  became  an  epileptic  and 
also  subject  to  paroxysms  of  absolute  change  of  identity. 
The  curious  fact  was  that  he  only  recollected  the  events 
of  his  life  that  had  occurred  in  each  alternate  state  of 
consciousness,  and  no  others.  "Archibald  Malmaison" 
is  entirely  in  accord  with  the  knowledge  we  possess  of 
these  remarkable  phenomena. 

In  an  article  published  several  years  ago  on  the  "  Dual 
ity  of  the  Mind  "  I  instanced  several  cases  as  tending  to 
show  that  we  have,  in  reality,  two  brains  which  are 
capable  of  acting  independently  of  each  other,  I  have 
introduced  the  condition  in  a  novel  of  the  Civil  War, 
which  I  have  just  finished,  and  in  which  one  of  the 
characters  leads  a  double  life. 

WILLIAM  A.  HAMMOND. 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C. ,  October  10,  1899. 


256 


OPINIONS    OF    MEDICAL    EXPERTS. 


FROM  EUGENE  S.  TALBOT,  M.D.,  SECRETARY  OF  THE 
SECTION  ON  STOMATOLOGY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  MEDICAL 
ASSOCIATION;  AUTHOR  OF  "DEGENERACY:  ITS  CAUSES, 
SIGNS,  AND  RESULTS." 

The  childhood  of  Archibald  Malmaison  indicates  the 
presence  of  degeneracy.  He  has  the  morbid  fatness 
which  so  often  occurs  in  degenerate  children  at  the  age 
given.  As  I  have  said  in  my  work  on  degeneracy,  the 
intelligence  of  an  otherwise  normal  degenerate  is  often 
lacking  as  regards  certain  faculties.  The  centers  of 
perception  are  unequally  impressionable,  unequally  apt 
to  gather  together  impressions,  of  which  only  a  few  are 
registered  and  leave  durable  images.  Certain  relations 
between  different  centers  are  perverted  or  entirely  de 
stroyed.  Because  of  these  conditions,  the  mental  results 
are  markedly  unequal  and  the  general  mental  condition 
is  unstable.  Given  a  mentality  of  this  type,  a  very 
slight  cause  would  produce  the  mental  condition  de 
scribed  in  "Archibald  Malmaison."  This  one  produced 
would  from  the  law  of  periodicity  of  the  nervous  system 
have  a  tendency  to  recur  under  the  conditions  which 
originally  produced  it.  EUGENE  S.  TALBOT. 

CHICAGO. 


FROM  CHARLES  HAMILTON  HUGHES,  M.D.,  EDITOR  AND 
FOUNDER  OF  "THE  ALIENIST  AND  NEUROLOGIST"; 
PRESIDENT  NEUROLOGICAL  SECTION  OF  THE  PAN- 
AMERICAN  MEDICAL  CONGRESS, 

I  have  been  much  entertained  by  the  story  of  "Archi 
bald  Malmaison."  It  is  startlingly  tragic  and  romantic, 
having  all  the  elements  of  good  fiction  founded  on  much 
possible  fact.  It  conveys  an  instructive  lesson  in  psy 
chology  and  psychiatry  almost  entirely  real,  and  imparts 
17  '  2S7 


ARCHIBALD    MALMAISON. 

an  insidious  but  valuable  moral  as  to  departure  from  the 
paths  of  rectitude  and  strict  sobriety,  two  of  the  leading 
characters  coming  to  grief  partly  through  the  mental  in 
stability  and  degeneration  of  alcoholism,  tho  not  being 
in  the  ordinary  sense  inebriates.  Kate' s  tragic  death  is 
also  a  lesson. 

The  strange  discovery  of  the  secret  chambers,  together 
with  the  fatal  ending  of  that  discovery,  the  accident  and 
singular  brain  state  resulting  therefrom,  altogether  make 
of  the  story  a  classical  work  of  fiction  founded  on  instruct 
ive  and  entertaining  fact.  Archibald  s  condition,  re 
curring  alternate  consciousness  and  lapse  of  time- mem 
ory,  has  been  duplicated,  tho  not  often  so  precisely,  in 
the  records  of  clinical  neurological  medicine.  A  study 
of  Philip  Wigan's  "Duality  of  the  Mind,"  published  for 
the  first  time  in  London  in  1744,  and  later  histories  of 
remarkable  mental  and  nervous  disease  aspects,  as  they 
maybe  learned  in  later  works  on  psychological  medicine 
and  treatises  on  the  mind  automatisms  and  alternating 
states  of  epilepsy — and  the  epileptoid  and  epileptic  psy 
choses — will  elucidate  this  further  than  the  author  has 
done,  and  sustain  the  startling  probabilities  and  possi 
bilities  on  the  medical  side  of  the  author's  story 

A  traumatic  epileptoid  or  epileptic  condition  might, 
by  some  medical  observers,  be  invoked  to  explain  the 
abnormal  mental  character  of  Archibald  Malmaison, 
while  others  might  attribute  it  to  "folie  circulaire, "  a 
form  of  insanity  in  which  states  of  melancholia  or  ap 
parent  imbecility  succeed  to  exuberant  exalted  states  of 
rational  mental  life,  etc.  An  altered  state  of  the  brain 
circulation  and  consequent  change  in  the  psychic  neu 
rones  or  thought  centers  of  the  mind's  organ,  caused  as 
a  result  thereof  and  of  the  precedent  head  injuries,  re 
curred  ;  the  first  one  in  the  secret  chamber  of  the  Mal 
maison  mansion  soon  after  its  singular  discovery ;  the 
258 


OPINIONS    OF    MEDICAL    EXPERTS. 

second  one  when  the  pistol  of  Pennroyal,  aimed  by  the 
dying  duelist  at  his  wife,  struck  Archibald  again  in 
the  head  and  caused  a  return  of  his  singular  malady 
which  had  forsaken  him  for  just  seven  years. 

Many  years  ago  a  patient  under  my  constant  obser 
vation,  in  a  large  State  institution  for  the  insane,  had 
been  instantaneously  transformed  by  the  kick  of  a 
horse's  hoof  into  an  insane  silent  automaton,  walking 
the  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  foot  corridor  of  the 
Missouri  State  Lunatic  Asylum,  from  one  end  to  the 
other,  back  and  forth,  slowly  turning  and  reversing  his 
walk  only  when  coming  in  contact  with  the  circular 
window  guard  at  either  end  or  when  turned  about  by  his 
attendant.  He  could  be  led  about  much  like  a  blind 
man,  only  he  could  see.  He  ate  and  drank,  went  to  bed 
and  arose  to  dress  himself  in  the  most  markedly  auto 
matic  manner,  with  more  or  less  of  suggestion  from  his 
attendant. 

He  went  to  his  meals  at  the  sound  of  the  bell,  ate  and 
drank  whatever  was  placed  before  him,  and  never  spoke 
a  word  from  the  time  of  his  injury,  until  one  day,  getting 
the  consent  of  his  friends,  I  trephined  his  head  over  the 
seat  of  the  head  indentation  on  the  left  side,  which  had 
been  made  by  the  calk  of  the  horse's  shoe.  He  inter 
posed  no  objection  to  the  operation,  and  when  two  but 
tons  of  bone  had  been  removed  from  near  the  speech 
center,  back  and  above  it,  he  exclaimed,  "Oh,  it  hurts  !  " 
This  was  his  first  speech  since  the  time  when  he  received 
the  hurt,  and  when  asked  by  me  what  year  it  was,  he 
gave  the  date  of  the  accident  four  or  more  years  before 
the  operation.  He  seemed  quite  normal  for  several 
months,  grew  more  and  more  loquacious,  and  his 
brother  wrote  me,  seme  years  after  his  discharge,  that 
it  was  quite  as  difficult  to  restrain  him  as  it  formerly 
was  to  start  him  in  conversation.  A  loquacious  form  of 
2S9 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

insanity  had  taken  the  place  of  the  previous  silent  phase, 
but  as  his  mental  malady  had  only  harmless  symptoms 
he  was  never  again  placed  under  asylum  restraint. 

A  number  of  cases  of  change  of  character  from  head 
wounds  and  some  from  alcoholism  have  come  under  my 
observation,  but  not  in  which  the  period  of  change  was 
precisely  seven  years.  Each  recurring  alternating 
change  of  character  is  not  always  precisely  like  the  pre 
ceding  one,  but  men  have  gone  away  from  home  during 
such  transition  states,  married,  become  the  fathers  of 
children,  and  again  returned  to  another  state  of  con 
sciousness  and  to  another  wife,  the  old  love  left  uncon 
sciously.  Disease  and  not  immorality  has  been  the 
cause  thereof. 

Abercrombie's  "Intellectual  Philosophy"  contains 
some  singular  instances  of  double  or  alternating  con 
sciousness,  interesting  to  read  in  connection  with  the 
story  of  "Archibald  Malmaison."  Forbes  Winslow's 
book  on  "Obscure  Diseases  of  the  Mind,"  as  well  as 
Dendy's  "  Philosophy  of  Mystery  "  and  Brierre  de  Beau 
mont's  "  Rational  History  of  Hallucinations,"  are  like 
wise  instructive. 

The  story  is  interesting  to  the  psychologist  as  well  as 
to  all  delvers  into  the  mysteries  of  science  or  fiction. 

Disease  of  the  brain  may  "roll  backward  time  in  its 
flight,  and  make  us  a  child  again,  just  for  a  night,"  as 
in  the  delirium  of  a  fever,  or  it  may  transform  us  into 
a  character  changed  for  years  or  for  a  lifetime,  a 
changed  character  which  may  be  impressed  on  our  pro 
geny  even  for  a  generation,  or  on  the  character  of  a  peo 
ple  through  the  teachings  of  a  morbidly  influenced  or 
distorted  brain  and  mind. 

The  elder  Dr.  Rollinson  was  not  so  far  advanced  in 
psychology  as  neurologists  and  alienists  are  to-day. 
The  doctrine  of  cerebral  automatism  had  made  an  im- 
260 


OPINIONS    OF    MEDICAL    EXPERTS. 

press  upon  him,  and  the  younger  Dr.  Rollmson,  like 
many  of  the  younger  medical  men  of  to-day,  was  not 
much  given  to  psychological  subtleties,  leaving  these 
studies  to  others  in  the  profession,  a  class  of  medical 
philosophers  which  were  the  beginning  of  the  psycho 
logical  and  neurological  experts  of  our  day 

The  death  of  Sir  Edward  was  from  true  apoplexy  as 
the  author  states,  and  he  gives  proper  causes  for  the 
event. 

The  author  too  modestly  disparages  himself  in  com 
parison  with  the  author  of  "Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde." 
I  consider  the  story  of  "Archibald  Malmaison  "  quite  as 
entertaining  as  the  story  of  the  former  quite  as  rich  in 
medical  mystery  and  fully  as  romantic. 

The  style  of  Julian  Hawthorne  in  the  classic  fiction  of 
"  Archibald  Malmaison  "  is  terse  and  touching.  "  The  day 
passed,  the  evening  fell.  At  midnight  he  was  Sir  Archi 
bald  Malmaison."  is  the  way  he  tells  the  story  of  Sir- 
Edward's  brief  illness  and  death  and  of  Archibald's 
sudden  and  unexpected  great  inheritance.  Language 
could  not  be  more  forceful  and  be  briefer. 

Kate' s  life  was  nearly  as  much  the  result  of  adverse 
environment  as  Archibald  s  life  was  of  disease.  Her 
life  and  its  sad  ending  inadvertently  abandoned  to 
solitary  death  in  the  secret  chamber,  whence  Archibald 
had  so  joyously  gone  to  his  second  oblivion  not  know 
ing  that  the  fate  of  an  overmastering  and  mysterious 
disease  would  suddenly  divest  him  of  power,  through 
loss  of  consciousness  to  return  and  effect  Kate' s  release, 
is  pathetically  true  to  the  psychology  of  woman's  nature 
under  such  tiial  and  surroundings  She  clings  to  her 
ideal  long  after  the  soul  life  of  her  first  lover  had  fled 
and  imbecility  had  come  to  take  its  place.  Seeking  re 
lief,  she  accepts  the  only  rescue  or  promise  of  cure  from 
heart  wreck,  as  it  appears  to  her  in  Pennroyal  s  offer  of 
261 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

marriage.  She  accepts  an  unsatisfying  substitution,  as 
many  another  woman  has  done  before  and  since,  to  cure 
a  psychic  wound  and  impress  of  the  heart,  which  is 
never  entirely  healed  by  such  recourse. 

The  career  of  Kate  was  not  severely  moral,  but  it  was 
natural,  showing  what  a  perilous  thing  it  was  for  Penn 
royal,  or  is  for  any  man,  to  marry  a  woman  who  has  once 
ardently  loved,  while  the  object  of  that  ardent  affection 
yet  lives,  even  tho  the  once  responsive  lover  has  become 
transformed  into  an  imbecile.  Love  lingers  long  about 
the  form  even  of  a  lover  demented  or  dead,  and  clings  to 
the  cerements  of  love's  corpse.  '  C.  H.  HUGHES. 

ST.  Louis,  October  10,  1899, 


FROM  C.   P.   BANCROFT,    M.D..  SUPERINTENDENT  OF  THE 
NEW  HAMPSHIRE  ASYLUM. 

.  The  story  of  "Archibald  Malmaison  "  is  psychological 
ly  interesting  and  suggestive.  The  psychic  phenomena 
with  which  it  deals,  tho  not  common,  still  do  occur  at 
rare  intervals  and  are  therefore  worthy  of  study  Al 
terations  of  personality  with  total  forgetfulness  of  all 
that  has  transpired  during  the  periods  of  changed  iden 
tity  have  occurred  with  sufficient  frequency,  so  that  the 
fact  of  alternating  consciousness  with  detached  memories 
is  perfectly  possible  and  credible.  The  cases  of  Rev. 
Ansel  Bourne  reported  by  Professor  James,  of  Felida 
reported  by  Dr.  Azam,  and  Mary  Reynolds  published 
by  Dr.  Weir  Mitchell,  are  psrtinent  illustrations. 

Changes  of  character  without  attendant  amnesia  re 
ceive  frequent  illustration  in  cases  of  recurrent  mania. 
During  the  exhilarated  stage  of  this  disease  the  individ 
ual  may  show  a  disregard  of  moral  principle  and  the 
decencies  of  life  entirely  at  variance  with  the  person's 
262 


OPINIONS    OF    MEDICAL    EXPERTS. 

normal  disposition.  Such  cases  m  the  active  stage  may 
become  malignant  vindictive,  and  homicidal,  in  fact  so 
far  unlike  their  natural  selves  as  to  suggest  Stevenson's 
weird  conception  of  "  Dr  Jekylland  Mr.  Hyde."  Nearly 
all  such  cases  of  recurrent  mania  however,  retain  their 
self -consciousness  and  do  not  lose  the  knowledge  of  their 
own  identity  after  they  have  passed  from  one  state  to 
the  other.  Usually  when  in  their  normal  state  such 
cases  deplore  more  than  any  one  else  the  extravagancies 
of  their  exhilarated  periods 

Stevenson  undoubtedly  had  in  mind  the  allegorical 
portrayal  of  vicious  habits,  the  outgrowth  of  a  deplor 
able  self -indulgence  which  finally  became  persistent  and 
so  organized  as  it  were  m  the  central  nervous  system  as 
to  dominate  the  life  of  the  individual.  Recurring 
mania,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  disease  over  which  the 
patient  has  no  control.  The  victim  of  self-indulgence 
has  only  himself  to  blame,  while  the  unfortunate  man 
suffering  from  recurring  mama  is  in  a  maelstrom  whose 
current  he  can  not  resist. 

The  case  described  by  Julian  Hawthorne  deals  with 
amnesia  alternating  personality,  and  to  this  extent  is 
true.  It  is  questionable,  however,  whether  a  person 
born  defective — a  congenital  imbecile,  as  is  represented 
in  Archibald  Matmaison—can  ever  by  a  sudden  bound 
pass  from  the  stupidity  of  the  organically  defective  brain 
to  the  intellectual  brilliancy  of  the  active  normal  brain. 
The  limitations  of  the  congenitally  defective  brain  are 
so  positive  and  so  persistent  that  it  is  difficult  to  perceive 
how  they  can  be  transcended  in  the  manner  outlined  in 
the  story.  Provided  Archibald  Malmaison  had  not 
been  a  natural,  had  not  been  born  deficient,  then  the 
alternations  of  personality  with  amnesia,  such  as  are 
described,  would  be  perfectly  possible.  The  garment 
can  not  be  made  larger  than  the  cloth  out  of  which  it  is 
263 


ARCHIBALD   MALMAISON. 

cut  It  is  difficult  to  understand  bow  Archibald  Mal- 
maison  in  his  best  estate  could  transcend  the  organic 
possibility  of  his  congenitally  defective  brain. 

C    P,   BANCROFT. 
CONCORD,  N,  H.,  October  21,  1899. 


FROM    F.  E.  DANIEL,  M.D.,  EDITOR  OF   THE  "TEXAS 
MEDICAL  JOURNAL." 

"While  I  can  say  nothing  that  will  throw  light  upon 
the  possibility  or  credibility  of  such  a  story  as  "Archi 
bald  Malmaison,"  yet  I  may  say  that  in  the  literature  of 
mental  diseases  are  recorded  instances  of  what  are  desig 
nated  "periodic  amnesia"  (loss  of  memory).  They  are 
associated  in  some  way  frequently  with  alcoholic  intem 
perance,  frequently  with  grief  or  some  great  shock. 
Those  cases  involve  the  intellectual  functions,  and  the 
character  of  the  individual  is  completely  changed  for  the 
time  being,  and  he  seems  to  have  two  distinct  but  alter 
nating  lives.  This  is  a  phase  of  insanity  recognized  by 
alienists,  and  is  found  in  some  common  forms  of  mental 
derangements,  notably  in  those  characterized  by  "illu 
sions  of  grandeur."  I  will  only  hint  at  the  cases  of 
"mysterious  disappearances "  in  which  a  person  may 
leave  home,  forgetting  his  own  name,  losing  his  iden 
tity,  and  going  elsewhere  perhaps  engages  in  some  men 
ial  pursuit,  returning  home  and  resuming  his  life  when 
the  "spell"  has  passed  off.  What  is  understood  as 
"double  consciousness"  is  seen  in  somnambulists  and 
hypnotists,  a  condition  that  can  be  produced  at  will  by 
certain  persons  on  certain  others.  When  science  has  so 
far  penetrated  the  mystery  of  life  as  to  be  able  to  ac 
count  for  the  hoiu  of  consciousness  and  the  manner  of 
its  generation  ;  when  theology  can  account  for  the  why 
of  its  existence,  light  may  be  thrown  on  those  states 
264 


OPINIONS    OF    MEDICAL   EXPERTS. 

which  are  recognized  as  abnormal  manifestations  of  it. 
While  not  strictly  relevant  to  the  question,  I  will  men 
tion  a  remarkable  instance  of  memory  absent  in  health, 
but  wonderfully  developed  during  cerebral  fever,  re 
corded  as  far  back  as  1858,  in  Carpenter's  "Physiol 
ogy  "  :  A  young  girl,  the  child  of  a  domestic,  during  this 
fever  was  able  to  repeat  passage  after  passage  of  the 
Hebrew  Bible.  When  she  recovered  she  not  only  could 
not  remember  it,  could  not  read  Hebrew,  but  could  read 
nothing.  It  was  supposed  that  in  early  childhood,  her 
mother  having  been  a  servant  in  the  family  of  a  Jewish 
rabbi,  the  child  had  heard  these  passages  read  and  they 
were  unconsciously  imprinted  on  her  "memory,"  where 
they  had  been  dormant,  we  will  say,  till  developed  by 
the  stimulus  of  fever  and  increased  blood  supply  to  the 
brain ;  for  the  question  seems  to  be  one  of  nutrition  on 
the  one  hand  and  the  lack  or  perversion  of  it  on  the 
other. 

I  will  not  be  so  bold  as  to  say  that  "Archibald  Mal- 
maison  "  was  impossible,  or  that  in  the  main  the  story 
may  not  have  been  taken  from  real  life.  Of  course  it  is 
exaggerated,  but  I  dare  say  the  character  might  have  a 
counterpart — a  parallel — in  the  main  essentials  in  some 
of  the  large  asylums.  "Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde  "  is  a 

physical  impossibility. 

F.  E.  DANIEL,  M.D. 

AUSTIN,  TEX.,  October  19,  1899. 


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